How many is a billion?

[featured_spectre]

Right because I am getting rather perplexed at the amount of people confusing a billion with a milliard (1,000,000,000) I shall be explaining the difference between a British Billion and the American Million (British Milliard)

 

In terms of general mathematics British English, a billion is the equivalent to a million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000), while in American English it has always equated to a thousand million (i.e. 1,000,000,000). British English has never adopted the American figure, though, most use the American figure so to many people a billion equals a thousand million.

 

The same sort of change has taken place with the meaning of trillion. In British English, a trillion is a million million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000). Nowadays, once again most people confuse it with the American figure which is generally held to be equivalent to a million million (1,000,000,000,000).

 

Scientifically and Financially to avoid this ambiguity, came to avoid the words altogether and refer to a thousand millions or a million millions when the use of numerals was not appropriate. Gradually, however, the American version began to predominate, however outside of the US, only Japan, Korea and China use the same system, the rest of the world uses the same scale as British English.

[X-13]

A thousand million makes more sense.

 

It follows the same pattern as the proceeding values.

 

Million = Thousand thousand.

 

 

X EDIT: Dear God... I actually had to double check I was right... Still not 100% on it.

[Robz]

X EDIT: Dear God... I actually had to double check I was right... Still not 100% on it.

 

Yeah I'm doubting my own thoughts now..... :/ I'm thoroughly confuzzled this early in the morning

[unixman]

British English has never adopted the American figure...

The short scale (ie 10^9) was adopted by the British government in 1974. Here is an extract from Hansard.

[Hightower]

British English has never adopted the American figure

 

Yet our own debt is measured in the 'american' format:

 

UK National Debt Clock - No-nonsense Guide to Britain's Debt Crisis

[X-13]

Yet our own debt is measured in the 'american' format:

 

UK National Debt Clock - No-nonsense Guide to Britain's Debt Crisis

 

 

Which means it's not as bad as it sounds.

[russdev]

To be honest its just a natural progression of language.. Below is an interesting article on the BBC about every day words we use that come from america.

 

BBC News - Viewpoint: Why do some Americanisms irritate people?

[chazzy2501]

It always made sense to me one, ten, hundred, thousand, million, billion... so one million, ten million, hundred million, thousand milion. The 'american standard' misses the thousand?

[NikChillin]

Under the Metric system each value for large figures is x thousand.

[alan-d]

Billion = Million Million (hence Billion)

Trillion - Million Million Million (hence Trillion)