1.8M views · May 24, 2012 · 9:42 · 1 HN recommender · 7 mentions · discussed 2014–2024
Numberphile explains the long and short scales for naming large numbers, covering millions, billions, trillions, milliards and the Greek myriad, with James Grime and Tony Padilla.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN links it whenever a thread hits the ambiguity of whether a billion is 10^9 or 10^12.
“explains it all quite nicely.”HN comment, 2014
“explains it all quite nicely.”
Explains short versus long scale billion definitions
I don't think that's right. 10^6 is a million in both languages. 10^9 used to be a milliard in British English but is no longer used. It is now referred to as a billion. 10^12 used to be a billion in British English but is now referred to as a trillion. Edit: this video explains it all quite nicely.
A thousand-billion is the old way of referring to numbers, but the UK switch to the American style in the 1970s. Strangely, the old style of billion, thousand-billion, trillion, thousand-trillion, quadrillion, etc, makes much more sense. What is a billion two of, anyway? What is a trillion three of? And so on? this video
“Is "billion" a thousand million (10^9) or a million million (10^12)? Numberphile video”
Long and short number scales for billion
> What other spelling idiosyncrasies are there that I can get on my high horse about? Long and short number scales? * link Is "billion" a thousand million (10^9) or a million million (10^12)? Numberphile video: * this video TL;DR: billion = bi-million = two of 10^6 = 10^{6x2} = 10^12. trillion = tri-million = 10^{6x3} = 10^18, and not 10^12. quad rillion, pent ….
“See also the video "How big is a billion?" by the Numberphile channel”
Discusses long and short scales, milliards and myriads
See also the video "How big is a billion?" by the Numberphile channel: > We discuss millions, billions, trillions and centillions is this film about the long and short scales. We also touch on quadrillions, sextillions, milliards, billiards and the Greek myriad. * this video Does a "billion" have 9 zeros or 12 zeros? * link * link
“See "How big is a billion?" by Numberphile”
Long versus short scale billions
See "How big is a billion?" by Numberphile : * this video * link (Given a choice, I would go with the long system, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the timeline we live in.)
“See "How big is a billion?" from Numberphile”
Long versus short scale billions
MM is for mille-mille (French?), thousand-thousand, so 1000-1000 or 1-000-000. See "How big is a billion?" from Numberphile : * this video * link
Long versus short scale billions
> Since SQLite is used extensively in every smartphone, and there are more than 4.0 billion (4.0e9) smartphones in active use, each holding hundreds of SQLite database files, it is seems likely that there are over one trillion (1e12) SQLite databases in active use. I find the scientific notation of the counts amusing given the sometimes different meanings of "billion" and "trillion" (especially with English as a second language): * link * this video * link (bonus: on French numbers)
