Poll: One Billion

[theheroofaction]

a billion is this big
1,000,000,000
to put that in perspective the population of earth is estimated between 7,000,000,000 and 8,000,000,000.

 

[Rockchimp69]

So recently I have learnt that the UK and the US have diffrent defintions of 1 Billion.

In the UK, one billion is one million x million

In the US, one billion is 1000 x Million

I live in England and ive always thought of it as 1000 x M because it made sense to me.
Just wondering whats your view on one billion and did you know there were variations?

Having nothing inbetween one million and a million million is stupid.
I think of it as 1000 million.

 

[Vykrel]

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?

yeaaah... i was thinking the same thing. and someone said what, 12 zeros? no, its only 9.

 

[Naturality]

The UK USED to use that system, but we all moved over many moons ago.

I've got books from the '70s that point out the distinction, but in any literature since then it's just assumed to be 10^9.

 

[Josho18]

In my Country there is:
One: 1.
Houndred: 100
Thousand: 1.000
Million: 1.000.000
Milliard: 1.000.000.000
Billion: 1.000.000.000.000
Billiard: 1.000.000.000.000.000
Trillion: 1.000.000.000.000.000.000
Trilliard: 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000
Kvadrillion: 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000
Kvadrilliard:1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000
And well you get the idea, every part got two instead of the American single.

 

[coldshadow]

wait, then what is a trillion? quadrillion? and so forth?

 

[shiajun]

I use the European(Yeah) system. Personally I've never used numbers beyond the Trilliard(Sextillion in US/UK system).

Million 1.000.000
milliard 1.000.000.000
Billion 1.000.000.000.000 <--- Name comes from Bi-million
Billiard 1.000.000.000.000.000
Trillion 1.000.000.000.000.000.000 <--- Tri-million
Trilliard 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000
Quadrillion 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 <--- Four-million
etc.
Quingentilliard = 10^3003 = ten with 3003 zero's

That's as far as I go. check it yourselves:

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_numbers[/link]
[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers[/link]

Edit: Btw, Yay for Wikipedia.

Thank you!! I was about to post this but it's not needed now. A billion is a million millions. Calling a 1000 millions a billion is another US numbering quirk that clashes with the rest of the world just as not using the metric system. UK's ambiguity in changing units seems to reflect in that some UK residents use either 10^9 or 10^12 for a billion.

 

[ChocoFace]

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?

It is, that's why it's messed up to call it billion.

 

[strobe]

1 with a hundred zeroes is called Googol, 10[sup]100[/sup]. It's fairly big and has a silly name.
10 to the power of Googol is called Googolplex, 10[sup]googol[/sup]. It's quite big, but nothing particularly exceptional. Mostly famous because it has a lot of zeroes and a funny name.

There are many other big and fancy numbers, but I don't think they deal with so many zeroes in one place. Which a Billion has 9 of.

OT: I'm British and I'm doing a Maths degree. In the past I've had the inclination to look at maths stuff on Wikipedia; stuff like this. Anyone of you making inane comments here also could have done but here's the summary: 1x10[sup]9[/sup] is a billion in standard form according to the international system (SI) of units; the antiquated definition of 10[sup]12[/sup] as a billion is unused (and if you asked most people my age (20), definitely younger, they probably wouldn't know it). There was the word milliard for 10[sup]9[/sup] and billiard for 10[sup]15[/sup].

(should math even HAVE a language?)

Maths is a language.

I shorten the name of the subject of mathematics to maths. I do Maths not English.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Its pretty logical having it at 1000 X 1,000,000 as you go up by three zero's a million is 10^6 a billion is 10^9 or another 3 zeros.

 

[Valkyrie101]

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?

It isn't. The UK billion has 12 zeroes, rather than the American 9. In reality, though, we use the US version like everyone else, and the old UK billion has become redundant.

 

[rda_Highlander]

well, that was educational. Never thought of this. In basically every country I know, 1 billion is 1000xMillion, like, Gigabyte - 1000 (1024, I know) Mbs. Well, in countries that have billions anyway.
It goes in threes as far as I understand. 10^3=thousand 10^6=Million 10^9=Billion 10^12=Trillion (not sure about trillion) and so on.

EDIT Gigalion sounds way cooler than Billion, hell yeah.

 

[Tokkobot]

What I would like to know is whose bright idea was it to just remove the name "milliard" from the scale altogether and just replace it with the next larger number name which is billion. It's just a naming scheme in the end but as some have already stated, billion > bi-million > million X million makes more sense. All the other numbers after milliard are screwed too because of this.
Luckily few people ever need such a big numbers in their lives so anything beyond billion/milliard isn't really that big of a deal.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

Wait what...I'm from Britain and my entire maths class and my maths teacher use 1,000,000,000...

Someone's been lying, methinks...well, in London anyway...

 

[Knusper]

I thought we used 1,000,000,000 in the UK and that USA used 1,000,000,000,000.

 

[thylasos]

A million million.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I never knew there was such a difference...interesting.

^same

though I've always though of it as just a billion but I've never really had to make it (or use it).

 

[Fraught]

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?

100 hundreds.

...100 hundreds.

100 hundreds?

So you had 9 hundreds, up to 999. What the fuck would come next?

Besides, this thread is not about why there aren't a thousand tens, or a bajillion hundreds or an infinity of thousands. It's just about the definition of (one) billion.

Oh, and by the way, I'm curious. What do the British call a one followed by nine zeroes, then?

EDIT: Also...DEM INDIANS.

 

[Bored otter]

In holland 10^9 is a miljard, where 10^12 is biljoen. So we have it backwards to. But in translating i never did it wrong so it's not a problem.

 

[Daffy F]

In the UK, one billion is one million x million

Not exactly. Since on the currency world stage, 1 billion is 1000 million, no-one uses this version anymore.