Gigaelectronvolts to Kilocalories (GeV to kcal)

1 gigaelectronvolt equals 3.829294058×10⁻¹⁴ kilocalories (rounded).

1 gigaelectronvolt = 3.829294058×10⁻¹⁴ kilocalories

How to convert gigaelectronvolts to kilocalories

To convert gigaelectronvolts to kilocalories, multiply the number of gigaelectronvolts by 3.829294058×10⁻¹⁴. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilocalories by 26,114,473,967,544 (rounded).

kilocalories = gigaelectronvolts × 3.829294058×10⁻¹⁴

Example: 10 gigaelectronvolts = 3.829294058×10⁻¹³ kilocalories.

The 'calorie' on food labels is really a kilocalorie. The thermochemical calorie (4.184 J) is used here unless marked IT.

About these units

Gigaelectronvolt (GeV)

ScientificCurrent unit

One billion electronvolts. The scale of particle accelerators; the proton mass is about 0.938 GeV/c².

Accelerators brought this unit into use. Older documents wrote BeV for billion electronvolts, and the Bevatron at Berkeley, which began operating in 1954 and reached a maximum of 13 GeV, took its name from the idea. Creating antiprotons there needed a proton beam of about 6.2 GeV, and the antiproton was found in 1955. The modern symbol GeV equals 1.602176634 x 10^-10 J.

Masses of heavy particles are quoted in GeV/c squared. A proton is about 0.938 GeV/c squared, and the Higgs boson, announced on 4 July 2012 at CERN, has a mass near 125 GeV, about 133 times the proton. At the Large Hadron Collider each proton beam reached 6.5 TeV in 2015, which is 6,500 GeV. The step above is the TeV, a thousand GeV, so the GeV sits in the middle of the energy range of high-energy physics.

1 gigaelectronvolt = 1.602176634×10⁻¹⁰ joules (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Bevatron; Wikipedia: Large Hadron Collider; Wikipedia: Electronvolt; Wikipedia: Proton

Kilocalorie (kcal)

ScientificTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

1,000 thermochemical calories (4,184 J). The 'Calorie' on food labels in North America.

Marcellin Berthelot separated the gram calorie from the kilogram calorie in 1879, and the American chemist Wilbur Atwater adopted a capital-C Calorie for the large unit in 1887 in a widely read article on the energy in food. Joseph Howard Raymond proposed the term kilocalorie in his 1894 textbook. The two names now describe the same quantity, 1,000 small calories, which at the thermochemical value is 4,184 J or 4.184 kJ.

Food labels carry the unit today, though practice differs by region. North American labels use kilocalories almost exclusively, European labels show kilojoules and kilocalories together under EU Regulation 1169/2011, and Chinese labels give kilojoules only. Typical energy contents are about 9 kcal per gram for fat, about 4 for carbohydrate and protein, and about 7 for alcohol. In electrical terms, 4,184 J works out to about 1.162 watt-hours, since one watt-hour is 3,600 J. NIST also lists a kilocalorie based on the International Table calorie, which is 4,186.8 J.

1 kilocalorie = 4,184 joules (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Calorie (includes kilocalorie); NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8 (energy conversion factors)

Related conversions

See all energy units.