People who use the term "a billion" without defining it

peterbaker

I have seen three definitions of the term "a billion" recently. I stupidly thought there were just two - theirs and ours.

student100

peterbaker wrote:

I have seen three definitions of the term "a billion" recently. I stupidly thought there were just two - theirs and ours.

I suppose there are three:
(1). 1,000,000,000 = 10^9- a billion
(2). 1,000,000,000,000 = 10^12 - the old fashioned billion, little used nowadays
(3). any very large number

I should think that almost anywhere that refers to a billion in print will refer to (1), which is the official defenition used in all English-speaking countries.

Davesmum_2

Ohhhh toooo maaannnnyyyy numbers student!! LOL

Need to go have a billion naps to get over reading this!! LOL

elona

I think one definition is American and the other is English but cannot remember which is which!

Dan29

From dictionary.com:

1. The cardinal number equal to 10^[size=-1]9[/size].
2. Chiefly British. The cardinal number equal to 10^[size=-1]12[/size].
3. An indefinitely large number.

So, a billion is a thousand million except in Britain where it is, or used to be, a million million - as student100 said

Wonga

elona wrote:

I think one definition is American and the other is English but cannot remember which is which!

The American one is bound to be the bigger one!


Eh! This isn't my signature!!!!

student100

Wonga wrote:

The American one is bound to be the bigger one!

Actually it's not. In the US a billion is always 10^9.

In Britain a billion is also 10^9 nowadays, unless you speak to someone who is being deliberately old-fashioned/anti-American. Whenever newspapers, the media etc. refer to a billion they will mean 10^9, i.e. thousand million.

Generally numbers larger than that are referred to by standard form (e.g. 1.5x10^11 (the distance from the Earth to the Sun in metres )) not by name. If you ever see reference in the media to a "trillion", it will be 10^12, a million million.

Dan29

student100 wrote:

If you ever see reference in the media to a "trillion", it will be 10^12, a million million.

So when the media announced last year that the British public are "A Trillion Pounds In Debt" they actually meant an old billion - but that wouldn't make such dramatic headlines of course

peterbaker

I just posted about what a billion might be in another thread, completely forgetting I ranted about it last month too!

No one here has mentioned that in the US a billion used to be taken as a mere 100 million.

I am pretty sure I am not dreaming it.

These numbers are far too big to be banded about. As I said elsewhere, every time anyone uses the term "billion" without exactly enumerating it I believe they should be interrupted and cross-examined about what number precisely they mean and why it is so large as to be incomprehensible to 99.99% of their audience.

student100

peterbaker wrote:

No one here has mentioned that in the US a billion used to be taken as a mere 100 million.

I am pretty sure I am not dreaming it.

Really? I have never heard that before. And I seem to remember doing a fair bit of research before posting my reply above

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

andy88_2

peterbaker wrote:

I just posted about what a billion might be in another thread, completely forgetting I ranted about it last month too!

Idea for new thread - people who use the term 'a billion' without remembering it