how many is a billion?

[ColJack]

after a question was set during a break on "how is it made" on the discovery channel, the result they came up with differed to mine, which prompted me to find out how many is a billion..

on looking it up, it turns out that the UK and the US have different definitions of what a billion is...

in the US, a billion is a thousand million... or 1,000,000,000

in the UK,a billion is a million million... or 1,000,000,000,000

so Bill Gates being a billionair isn't as impressive as it would be if he was a Brit...


FYI, the question they asked was...
"how many years is a billion seconds?"..
their answer?...
"about 32 years.."

whereas I got it to about 31,688 years...... hence my perplexion..

 

[jackpot]

You are quite right. The American and British are different. The British version is the correct as the American is found to be out of sync if you counted from 1. However due to larger numbers in businesses and monetary values etc the American version seems to be the more widely used.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Well America is "special"

 

[megawatt]

In the UK,a billion is a million million... or 1,000,000,000,000

Not as far as I've ever come across chaps.

1 million = 6 zeros, 1 billion = 9 zeros

Where have you seen it used differently in the UK?

MW

 

[oompah]

How many zeros are in a billion?


Answer
In the 'short scale', which is used predominantly by English-speaking countries, a billion is 1000 million:

1 000 000 000

So there are nine noughts. The 'long scale' is used elsewhere, and in this system 'one billion' denotes a million million:

1 000 000 000 000

...which has twelve noughts. Of course, if you want to add decimal places (e.g. for currency) then there are as many zeroes as you see fit.

 

[Stivino]

I'm with Coljack, I was always taught;

in the US, a billion is a thousand million... or 1,000,000,000

in the UK,a billion is a million million... or 1,000,000,000,000

 

[megawatt]

Sorry to be persistent but ... Taught where?

 

[Barsteward]

Sorry to be persistent but ... Taught where?

School.
1 Billion = 1 milion million.
Just because the yanks use thousand million, doesn't make it right, just makes it the norm.

 

[megawatt]

Odd as I was taught at school that 1 billion = 1000 million and I went to school in England not the US

 

[Barsteward]

Ok, so how many litres in a Gallon??

 

[ColJack]

http://dictionary.die.net/billion

http://www.atsnotes.com/other/glossary.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion

 

[tim west]

Sorry MW I was taught the same from primary to secondary education (60's/70's) that UK is million million and US is thousand million.

 

[namsag]

For the billionth time mega are you going to pay attention in class. .

Personally was always taught there where 2 different ways of doing a billion ours an yanks way and to confuse matters more both systems where introduced by the French

 

[megawatt]

This is why I asked the question because there is obviously a discrepancy between us here and I guess we have all been taught to different interpretations.

Does anyone know when the UK adopted the short measure ... Unless my school was revolutionary it must have been early 70's or thereabouts

MW

 

[megawatt]

Or ... My school was just crap ... Or, as someone as suggested ... I didn't listen