How much is a Billion?

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Had a disscusion in work over this, and couldnt decide what makes a billion?

1000 million? million million? i dunno?
 
Two billions:

US Billion: 1000 million
British Billion: a million million, though widely use the US version

damn you Rotty!
 
US: 1000 million = 1,000,000,000
UK: million million = 1,000,000,000,000


However almost no one uses the UK convention any more


waaaaaaaay too slow!
 
One thousand million.

Edit: I had this response open for about 3 minutes before hitting reply, did I really expect my answer to be anything more than a repeat? :rolleyes:
 
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We had the question lsat week in a pub quiz

Q - How many Zeros are there in a Billion, our table then asked the quiz master on which Billion, English or American, he answer English but then when the asnwer read out he said its' 9 !

Next pub quiz i am going to give him some of these facts ! :mad:


http://100777.com/node/1501

An English billion is 1,000,000,000,000, whereas an American billion is 1,000,000,000. An American trillion is the same as an English billion and an English trillion is a million million million.

and here

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/english/data/d0081651.html

billion
In British English billion has traditionally meant a million million. The American meaning of billion (a thousand million)

and here

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/billion

If you are British, on the other hand, a billion may be 1,000,000,000,000 (a million million), following the older convention.
 
So really, Richard Branson is around 100 times richer than Bill Gates? And that 3 Billion he gave the other week to 'charity' was actually 3 trillion in US terms - around the size of the entire UK Housing market?

Rich man...

edit/foiled again.....boohoo
 
This is one of the first questions I asked when I learned how to count, so my mother tells me. I think it was then followed by questions like "Is there a squillion? How much is a krillion?", that kind of thing.
 
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