Poll: One Billion

[GrizzlerBorno]

You think that's crazy? Go to China or India, and you'll find they do big numbers in groups of four, producing numbesr that look like this: 1,00,00,000 etc, as opposed to 10,000,000). Look up the Indian "Crore".

This is true.........and It's ANNOYING.
No scratch that, it's fucking Goddamned Annoying. As in, to the point that I refuse to do any math in my native language (should math even HAVE a language?)

Also, it's not just in China and India, it's in a few other South Asian countries like mine and Thailand.etc.

OT: I always use Billion as 1000 million. Didn't know there were different versions. What do Britons call 1,000,000,000 then?

 

[Hawgh]

1.000.000 = million.
1.000.000.000.000 = billion (milliard).
1.000.000.000.000.000.000 = trillion.
1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 = quadrillion.

 

[Anarchemitis]

One million millions is one trillion, or 1000 billion.

 

[Plurralbles]

so there isn't even remotely close to 6 billion people in the world by the UK model...

That's retarded.

How do they even function being that garbage and just giving things arbitrary definitions... the rest of the english speaking world makes sense.

Glad they've been okay since 1975

 

[Johnlives]

Being British, I should apparently say it a million million, but as a scientist it's always going to have to be 1*10^9.

 

[Redingold]

Does anyone know off the top of their heads what

10 to the power of 1(insert 100 0's here) is

The resulting number is so large you could not actually write it down in full over the length of the universe. Apparently.

No, you mean 10[sup]10[sup]100[/sup][/sup]. 10[sup]100[/sup] can be written down easily:

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The number you were thinking of was a 1 followed by that many zeroes, which is called a googolplex.

That's not a particularly large number, either, though. 9[sup]9[sup]9[sup]9[/sup][/sup][/sup] is bigger than that.

The biggest named finite number is Graham's number, which is so large it can't actually be written down in the form of a tower of powers.

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/cyc/g/graham.htm

Anyhoo, enough of that. In the old British system, one billion was indeed 10[sup]12[/sup], and 10[sup]9[/sup] was called a milliard. Now, however, British people use 10[sup]9[/sup] as a billion (at least, everyone I know does).

 

[FamoFunk]

I've never had to think about 1 billion, except in my dreams.

 

[loc978]

...engineer's notation is what I go by. Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera... screw this million-billion nonsense. I'll take a GigaDollar, please!

 

[Davey Woo]

It is "a million" millions, so...
1,000,000 = million...
100,000,000,000,000 = billion?

EDIT:
1,000,000 = one million
10,000,000 = ten million
100,000,000,000 = one hundred million
1,000,000,000,000 = one thousand million (I think that is the "American" Billion)
10,000,000,000,000 = ten thousand million
100,000,000,000,000 = 1 billion

 

[MintyNinja]

Taught that:
1,000,000,000 = 1 billion
1,000,000,000,000 = 1 trillion
1,000,000,000,000,000 = 1 quadrillion? <-- not sure about the last one.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Found out after the fact. Here is the shadow warrior's post:

1.000.000 = million.
1.000.000.000.000 = billion (milliard).
1.000.000.000.000.000.000 = trillion.
1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 = quadrillion.

 

[Sun Flash]

I'm British and I knew there used to be a difference, but I've been taught 1000 M = Billion.

Although a million million sounds cool.

 

[maninahat]

12 zeroes for a billion? that's messed up.
1000 x million is the right way, of course.

It is messed up, my friend and I had an interesting conversation... until we realised we were working with 2 different numbers
And isn't 12 zeros a trillion?

You mean a billion billion? Not if you are english. The Trillion has 18 zeros.

 

[Redingold]

Does anyone know off the top of their heads what

10 to the power of 1(insert 100 0's here) is

The resulting number is so large you could not actually write it down in full over the length of the universe. Apparently.

No, you mean 10[sup]10[sup]100[/sup][/sup]. 10[sup]100[/sup] can be written down easily:

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The number you were thinking of was a 1 followed by that many zeroes, which is called a googolplex.

That's not a particularly large number, either, though. 9[sup]9[sup]9[sup]9[/sup][/sup][/sup] is bigger than that.

The biggest named finite number is Graham's number, which is so large it can't actually be written down in the form of a tower of powers.

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/cyc/g/graham.htm

Anyhoo, enough of that. In the old British system, one billion was indeed 10[sup]12[/sup], and 10[sup]9[/sup] was called a milliard. Now, however, British people use 10[sup]9[/sup] as a billion (at least, everyone I know does).

No what I asked for was what is

10 to the power of 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Which is a googolplex. I definitely said it right.

Oh, right. Sorry, my mistake. I didn't read what you'd written carefully enough.

 

[Anchupom]

Billion.
Bi-million
2-million
Million[sup]2[/sup]
1,000,000[sup]2[/sup]
1,000,000,000,000

Language solves maths.


I know that we all use 1x10[sup]9[/sup] but linguistically the American way (which everyone uses) is the wrong way.

 

[maninahat]

You think that's crazy? Go to China or India, and you'll find they do big numbers in groups of four, producing numbesr that look like this: 1,00,00,000 etc, as opposed to 10,000,000). Look up the Indian "Crore".

I like a million millions being a billion, but the change to the American sytem is sensible. If you think 1000 million=1 billion is wrong, then why are you okay with 10 hundreds making 1000? Shouldn't you want it to be 100 hundreds?

it should be 1,0000,0000. It is just 4 digits in a group instead of 3. How is that crazy?

Because you end up with big numbers like "Lakh" (100,000), "Crore" (10,000,000) Kharab (100 billion) etc. None of these numbers have an equivalent big name in western culture. They are just "one hundred thousand", or "ten million" etc. In other words, it is an extreme example of the original question about how to name large numbers.

 

[crudus]

Um... no?
1 Billion = 1,000,000,000
1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000
1,000,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000

So... A better question is, why is UK bad at math?

10^9 is the "short scale" whereas 10^12 is the "long scale". The short scale meaning is more common. The archaic word for 10^9 is "milliard" and probably why the UK is most known for calling 10^12 a billion.

 

[Voodoomancer]

Hehe, in Iceland we call a billion a Milliard

 

[Deadlock Radium]

In Norway:
1,000,000 - 1 Million
1,000,000,000 - 1 Milliard
1,000,000,000,000 - 1 Billion
1,000,000,000,000,000 - 1 Billiard

You get it.

 

[kuyo]

million=1,000,000
billion=1,000,000,000
trillion=1,000,000,000
quadrillion=1,000,000,000,000
I think someone's fucking with you. A million squared is a quadrillion.

Or at least that's what I thought before consulting wikipedia. It said that the million squared thing is some arcane long form.

 

[BlueberryMUNCH]

I'm a Sixteen year old kid from London and I've always known it as 1000 Million o.o.

I mean, a population of 7 Billion being 7 Million Million?
...yeaaaaaaaah.