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Old 09-December-2004, 04:24 PM
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Default Re: Confessions: How I hate billions

Quote:
Originally Posted by mickal555
OK I drafted up a large post ages ago about this, but it was deleted. Since this is my thousandth post I want to redo it.
OK the universe is about 13 billion years old.
A Billion = million x million
or douse it?
As you seem to know, reference.dictionary.com:

1. The cardinal number equal to 10^9.
2. Chiefly British. The cardinal number equal to 10^12.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mickal555
it should logically
every time we square a number we need to invent a new name so
10^2 Ten
=100 Hundred
100^2
=1000 Thousand
Whoa. 100^2 is what? Are you Chinese? That culture gives it a name, wan. Me, I call it ten thousand. My culture has a vestigal name for it, though, myriad. How does that fit in your squaring "system"?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mickal555
1000^2
=1000000 Million
1000000^2
=1000000000000 billion
In some cultures. Perhaps yours, Australia, ins't it? In others, in cultures where those Universe ages came from, new names come every power of a thousand (and 100 is a special case).

Quote:
Originally Posted by mickal555
<<<<<<<<<<< so the universe is 13000000000000 years old I've believed that my whole life until I recently discovered a shocking truth 1 billion = a thousand million so the universe is only 1300000000000 years old. Or is it?
Is it:
13000000000000 or
1300000000000?

Neither. That 13 billion is 13000000000. 13 times 1000 times 1000 times 1000.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mickal555
I dunno, but why did the Americans make a billion only a thousand million. Is it so they could be billionaires. Is a trillion 100000000000000000000000 (10^24 normal billion^2 [billion^2) or is it a million billion. or is it a thousand million^2 or what? :-? Help Me!!
For the culture that produced those numbers, think powers of 1000 -- not squares of the last named number.

1000^1 Thousand
1000^2 Million
1000^3 Billion
1000^4 Trillion
1000^5 Quadrillion

For that older English-speaking culture, and some derivatives, think powers of a million -- not squares of the last named number.

1000000^1 Million
1000000^2 Billion
1000000^3 Trillion
1000000^4 Quadrillion
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