How much is a Billion?

G-MAN2004 said:
Yea, I've always thought it was a 1000 million and a 1000 billion is a trillion!
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Either one is correct.

As the AskOxford site states, since the prevalence of international business we have pretty much adopted the 'American' billion. Personally I define a billion as 1,000 million out of convenience :)
 
mleh said:
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
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Isnt Gates the richest man on the planet tho?
 
I've often had discussions regarding this on various maths sites, mainly with Americans, and finally managed to persuade some of them that the system used in USA and now over here too is less logical than the one we used to use.

Consider.

Our old system:

Billion = million ^ 2
Trillion = million ^ 3
Quadrillion = miliion ^ 4
etc.
A completely logical system, as bi means 2, tri means 3, quad means 4, etc.

The new system, adopted from the French and Americans:

Billion = thousand ^ 3
Trillion = thousand ^ 4
Quadrillion = thousand ^ 5
etc

Far less logical, as bi does not mean 3, tri does not mean 4, etc.

I finally convinced one american who was adamant that their system as logical, by pointing out that their system would be entirely equivalent to using the term bicycle to mean a cycle with three wheels, a quadrilateral to mean a polygon with five sides, etc.
 
Drawoh Tesremos said:
I've often had discussions regarding this on various maths sites, mainly with Americans, and finally managed to persuade some of them that the system used in USA and now over here too is less logical than the one we used to use.

Consider.

Our old system:

Billion = million ^ 2
Trillion = million ^ 3
Quadrillion = miliion ^ 4
etc.
A completely logical system, as bi means 2, tri means 3, quad means 4, etc.

The new system, adopted from the French and Americans:

Billion = thousand ^ 3
Trillion = thousand ^ 4
Quadrillion = thousand ^ 5
etc

Far less logical, as bi does not mean 3, tri does not mean 4, etc.

I finally convinced one american who was adamant that their system as logical, by pointing out that their system would be entirely equivalent to using the term bicycle to mean a cycle with three wheels, a quadrilateral to mean a polygon with five sides, etc.
Click to expand...

The American system seems to be standard here anyway, and I always found it to make more sense. But now you point that out, I can see it really doesn't!

Here's another question along the same lines. What come after Terra as in Terrabyte? (I think it might be Yotta but there might be something before that).
 
Psyk said:
The American system seems to be standard here anyway, and I always found it to make more sense. But now you point that out, I can see it really doesn't!

Here's another question along the same lines. What come after Terra as in Terrabyte? (I think it might be Yotta but there might be something before that).
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Petabyte i think (or possibly Petra)
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
yes Rotty pointed out my mistake, I'm not going to edit that post for comedy value
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Sorry I wasn't having a go, his post wasn't there when I was looking. That always happens to me :(
 
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