How much is a billion?

Member_14923

I came across this site http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~gromero/billion.html and their explanation has got me confused. Can any techy savvy people clear this??

Chris Maunder

I always thought this was country dependant. Certainly I've always thought a billion as 1000 x 1 million, trillion as 1000 x billion. I guess I always thought that that "bi" in billion meant 2 sets of "000"'s before the final "000", and the tri in trillion meaning three sets of "000"'s and final set of "000"'s. Maybe we should just use E notation instead... cheers, Chris Maunde

Lori

I know how much is a billion is? Pocket change for Mr. Gates!! Lor

Member 1208965

I remember hearing a joke during a Jay Leno monologue once that said if standard ratios apply to Bill Gates, he's got roughly $700M in change sitting in his bedroom drawer. :

Chris Losinger

here's how i remember it: million is 1st (monoillion ?) billion is 2nd (bi-illion) trillion is 3rd (tri-illion) quadrillion... 4 quintillion.... 5 etc. i don't understand why the UK swaps bi and tri. -

Kalle

I live in Sweden, and the following "rules" apply: 1 milliard: 1 * 10^9 1 billion: 1 * 10^12 It's amazing how people change everything

Shane Warren

Ok, I'm from the US but the guy I guess has a point... He's saying that you shouldn't have to come up with a new name for an amount until you come to the point where you have to say an amount twice. For example: We need a "Million" because it would be weird to say "One Thousand Thousand". So we could say what we call a Billion "One Thousand Million" without saying any of our defined amounts twice together. We could repeat this up to "999,999 Million" (um not sure on that one, looks strange), then the next number we would hit would hit is "One Million Million" thus needing a new amount "1 Billion". I myself think in terms of 1000's I guess, so saying "1 Thousand Million" sounds strange compared to "1 Billion" and it gets even stranger the higher you go

Jamie Nordmeyer

The decimal system already runs on E notation, when you think about it. When we write out numbers, we seperate them with commas at every 3 digits, or every 1000 numbers, which is, of course, how E notation works (in 3's, that is)

Leo Davidson

How much is a billion? It doesn't matter. The word should not be used, at least not for a general audience, because there *is* no one standard billion. Any word that is used to convey a numeric value and is ambiguous should be burnt at the stake. :-) I've got the matches, anyone got a stake?

Alvaro Mendez

If all you know is English this isn't a big deal. It seems like the English language considers a billion = 1,000,000,000. However, when you go to other languages like Spanish (my native tongue), things get a little complicated. There a billion (billón) is just like the site says: 1,000,000,000,000. So you can imagine how difficult it must be for English-to-Spanish translators or reporters in the US when they hear American politicians talking about billions or trillions of dollars and have to convert that to Spanish. It's actually amazing how some of them don't even bother to do the conversion: they just treat them as equivalent!

John 0

Alvaro I don't get it... If you call 1,000,000... a million. And if you call 1,000,000,000,000... a billion. What do you call 1,000,000,000? John

Buck

1,000,000,000 = one thousand million, So 999,000,000,000 = 9 hundred and 99 thousand million, And 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = one thousand million billion Regard

Andy Hassall

www.dictionary.com: bil·lion n. Abbr. b. 1. The cardinal number equal to 10^9. 2. Chiefly British. The cardinal number equal to 10^12. 3. An indefinitely large number. [French a million million: blend of bi-, second power; see bi-1 and million.] Having said this, if you asked the average person on the street in the UK what a billion was, they'd say a thousand million. (10^9 is always used when reporting sums of money)

Member 1208965

Ow, my head hurts. :