How big is a billion?
According to Wikipedia...
I guess, then, that I should finally stop thinking of a billion as a million million. What a sad discovery.
In other news, I'm doing an essay on epistemology, and more specifically on the Lockean theory of belief and the lottery and preface paradoxes. It's surprisingly interesting.
The long and short scales are two of several different large number naming systems used throughout the world:
Short scale is the English translation of the French term échelle courte. It refers to a system of large number names in which every new term greater than million is 1,000 times the previous term: billion means a thousand millions, trillion means a thousand billions, and so on.
Long scale is the English translation of the French term échelle longue. It refers to a system of names in which every new term greater than million is 1,000,000 times the previous term: billion (from bi and million) means a million to the power of two or a million millions, trillion (from tri and million) means a million to the power of three or a million billions, and so on.
Many countries, including most in continental Europe, use the long scale. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the United Kingdom uniformly used the long scale, while the United States of America used the short scale, so that usage of the two systems was often referred to as British and American respectively. In 1974, the government of the UK switched to the short scale, a change that is now reflected in its mass media and official usage. Although some residual usage of the long scale continues in the UK, the phrases British usage and American usage are no longer accurate nor helpful characterizations.
I guess, then, that I should finally stop thinking of a billion as a million million. What a sad discovery.
In other news, I'm doing an essay on epistemology, and more specifically on the Lockean theory of belief and the lottery and preface paradoxes. It's surprisingly interesting.