Okay so we have 14 replies to my little experiment, the results were better than I expected, I had feared that everyone would give the American answer... You see in American English, going from a million to a billion adds 3 zeros, then to go to a trillion is another 3 zeros, quadrillion is 3 more zeros than a trillion and so on... So for all of you who answered that your from USA and you said 1,000,000,000,000, I'd say have a cookie, but your language is mathematically bizarre and so you don't deserve one even though you are correct!
Canadians are in the same boat, they use the American system so you Canadian folk can have a cookie (go on, you deserve it)
Now I would like to congratulate the anonymous people! Not only is anonymous legion, but anonymous is also correct! an English (and much of Europe) trillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. Yes that's a big number! In English numbers Million is 1,000,000, then billion adds six zeroes, 1,000,000,000,000. A trillion adds on another 6 zeroes, a quadrillion is another 6 and so on...
Now as for the English reply I acquired... shame on you! You have joined the mass media of today and started using the Americanised numbers! Britain's media almost exclusively use the American numeral system, and even England's government uses them interchangeably depending on department.
This might not seem like a big issue, but how many times do you see titles like "The government is £40 billion in debt"? You see 40,000,000,000 is a big number for sure, that's a lot of debt, and its what is usually meant, but if the truth was that its an English billion then the government would be in a thousand times more debt! This is a distinction that needs to be clarified before you throw around words like billion!
An important example occurs in biology which is why I brought this up, one of my text books claims there are between 10-50 billion cells in the human body depending on size and health, if you look online quickly you'll probably find a site saying the same in trillions. If you don't know whats going on your estimated number of cells in the body can vary from:
10,000,000,000 - 50,000,000,000,000,000,000
Next time your local news says billion or trillion, make sure you know whats going on, the media does enjoy making things sound different than the truth, keep a sceptical eye open and you'll be that step close to knowing whats going on in the world!
Now don't get me started on googlplexplex...
8 comments:
Hmm, I learned something today. :)
I mean, I know you folks across the puddle use inappropriate U's a lot for 'colour' and such, and add extra syllables for things like (Aluminum) Ah-loo-min-um. and I can forgive the discinction between a liter and a litre as our American misunderstanding of metric spellings.
But adding extra zeroes to a billion? Crazy-talk I tell you! :)
My life used to be much easier in pre-lienna-at-uni days. ;)
I only said the american version because that's what the royal mint counts it as in our currency.
The whole number mess up only exists because some very rich americans wanted to become billionaires so they redefined the amount of a billion.
Yep, and the same thing happened over here which is why the Mint likes to use it, makes numbers seem bigger when in fact they are smaller.
I would like to say though that the excuse "The mint does it" doesn't make a wrong answer right. Most people belive some *really* silly things, the trick is to decide for yourself what is right.
I can't stop people from saying Billion when they mean thousand million, but I know enough to check which they mean so that *I* know whats going on!
Sounds like a bit of crazy to me... What is 10,000,000,000 called in English numbers, 10 thousand million?
American's changed the numbers to make a uniform distinction between the commas. It makes it so there is a predictable way of seperating numbers in a largest to smallest form. IE, The number 110,005,500, In american you start with the largest and work twords a smaller number, 1e 110 billion, 5 million, 500 thousand. In English I belive it would be something like 110 hundred and 5 thousand million, 500 thousand.
I'm probably way off on the english form of saying the numbers, but I do know that the whole idea of saying billion just to sound like you have more makes no sence for people born after it was taught that billion is 1,000,000,000... because to them thats all it means, they have no concept of it meaning even more or seeming like more.
PS. I just re-read what I typed and the english number I said came out wrong, I meant to say 1 hundred 10 thousand and 5 million, 5 hundred thousand.
I never even thought about it and I doubt I'll never will either xD
But an intressting read anyways.
110,005,500 in *proper* english numbers would be:
"one hundred and ten million, five thousand, five hundred" and since its less than a billion it would be the same in america
assuming you meant 110,005,500,000 it would be:
"one hundred and ten thousand million, five million, five hundred thousand"
So we still have a uniformal name for each set of commas, its just that we use the words "thousand million" in exactly the same way america uses the word "billion"
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