Final answer:
The metric prefix milli- represents 0.001 or 1/1,000. This is evident in measurements where 1000 millimeters equal 1 meter. Other metric prefixes like kilo- and mega- represent 1,000 and one million, respectively.
Step-by-step explanation:
The prefix milli- in the metric system means 0.001 or 1/1,000. In practical terms, this can be seen in conversions such as 1000 millimeters (mm) being equal to 1 meter (m). For instance, when measuring small entities like a seed, we would use millimeters as a unit of length.
Multiplicative prefixes are also used for other measurements, such as computer memory, where the unit megabyte (MB) is commonly used to represent one million bytes. Similarly, other metric prefixes indicate different factors of 10, such as the prefix kilo-, which represents a factor of 103 or 1,000, leading to a kilometer (km) being 1,000 meters.