How is a Billion Really ?

aquafireaquafire
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Ooops meant the post to read:



" How much is a Billion really ? "



Anyway this is interesting given that Bush is asking for so much money from congress..



Made me wonder how much is a Billion...really ?



Turns out that it depends on who you are talking to..as different values are attached to the amount in question.



http://www.sunblock99.org.uk/sb99/pe...d/ji_bill.html



In terms of Tax.... I'd pay the American one..



As long as I got paid the British one...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    From what I've learned of French and Spanish, the corresponding words for billion and trillion have the same meaning as in British (10^12 and 10^18), not American (10^9 and 10^12), English. I'm wondering now if Americans are alone in this numerical inflation. I think English-speaking Canadians use billion and trillion in the American sense, but I'm not sure. If Canadian anglophones use the American sense of these words, I then wonder if Canadian francophones do this too.



    I suspect a lot of Americans are completely unaware that British billions and trillions are much bigger than American billions and trillions.



    Edit: Just noticed that 10^18 turns partly into a sunglass-wearing smiley face unless I turn off smileys. (smiley in olde fashioned ASCII text)
  • Reply 2 of 5
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Many people have a hard time fathoming how much a billion is, so some authors (like Stephen Hawking for example) will refer to it as "1000 million". That makes it a bit easier to comprehend, since it is frankly a huge number of (anything).



    So 87,000 Million Dollars. And I think the number is low by 50% or more. We shall see if the number was a PR number or close to what is actually needed to get the real work done.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Moogs

    Many people have a hard time fathoming how much a billion is, so some authors (like Stephen Hawking for example) will refer to it as "1000 million".



    Hawking isn't doing that just to make things clearer. He's doing that because he's British. After 100,000,000, American and British terminology for large numbers diverges.





    Number       &n bsp;     American &n bsp;British

    -----------------  --------  -------

            1, 000,000  million   millio n (same)

        1,000,000,000  b illion   thousand million

    1,000,000,000,000  trillion  b illion





    I believe the way this works is that the same words we use in American English for every factor of 1,000 -- million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, etc. -- are the same words used in British English, but that there is a factor of 1,000,000, instead of a mere 1,000, in between each word's value in the British usage.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Ah. Sorry. Only had a spare minute to post the last entry. I hadn't realized Hawking was British. Odd... to my recollection he doesn't use British spellings in his books (colour vs. color, realise vs. realize, etc). I thought he was an American who had attended Cambridge. Learn something new every day I guess.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    aquafireaquafire Posts: 2,758member
    Originally posted by Moogs



    " Hawking ..... British. Odd... to my recollection he doesn't use British spellings in his books (colour vs. color, realise vs. realize, etc)"



    Since America is by far the biggest market for books written in english, it stands to reason that editors will alter spelling to suit local spelling needs.



    Ps I've always wondered where he gets his "Voice" from ?



    I suspect he uses a mac with speech function but can't be sure...\
Sign In or Register to comment.