A billion; 1,000,000,000?

or 1,000,000,000,000?

[tosspot17]

I know here in the UK a billion is traditionally 1,000,000,000,000 (one million million), and in the US it's 1,000,000,000 (one thousand million).

My question is, in the UK, is the American billion (1,000,000,000) mainly used, rather than the UK one? - i.e. in the media etc.

Why is the US billion only a thousand million?

Any ideas?

;)

[lazerzubb]

Hehe funny had this conversation with WebmasterWorld members once.

Uk have changed the number so it matches the US one, so when financial reports etc say 1 billion £ in the uk, they mean 1,000,000,000 £

Only dinasours use the other one ;)

[ukgimp]

I won money on that one once, lazz is right. So was I. I had to produce a dictionary to do so. I win, so hand it over...

[Brett_Tabke]

million, 1,000,000
billion, 1,000,000,000
trillion, 1,000,000,000,000
quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000

Yottabytes= todays dream...tomorrows reality.

or

bit
nybble
byte
kilobyte
megabyte
gigabyte
terabyte
petabyte
exabyte
zettabyte
yottabyte

[jcoronella]

million, 1,000,000
billion, 1,000,000,000
trillion, 1,000,000,000,000
quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000

googol, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

google, 1

[tosspot17]

Why a billion as a thousand million then? Any ideas why two different systems started?

[georgeek]

Why a billion as a thousand million then? Any ideas why two different systems started?

The US adopted the French system and kept it but in the early 1940s the French changed and adopted the UK system. The UK system is still 10^12 for a billion in legal matters.

[tosspot17]

Ok, I can kind of see why the UK system isn't all that preferable, slightly long winded... (US number in blue, UK in bold)

Thousand 1, 000 Thousand

Million 1, 000, 000 Million

Thousand Million 1, 000, 000, 000 Billion

Billion 1, 000, 000, 000, 000 Trillion

Thousand Billion 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Quadrillion

Million Billion 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Quintillion

Thousand Million Billion 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Sextillion

Trillion 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Septillion

Thousand Trillion 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Octillion

Million Trillion 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Nonillion

Plus the US ones sound cooler ;)

[atadams]

On a large number note, some scientists have calculated the number of stars in the known galaxy at 70 sextillion, or 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 70,000 million million million.

Makes you think of the line from Contact. "But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space."

[cnn.com...]

[gsx]

I heard that some financial people in the UK started using billion the American way (the smaller number) because the US were starting to get billionaires, but the UK had plenty of US billion billionaires, but no UK billion billionaires! So to show off to those US billionaires...the US numbers were used but also they stuck.