How big is a billion? - Numberphile
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it whenever a thread hits the ambiguity of whether a billion is 10^9 or 10^12.
What it is
Numberphile explains the long and short scales for naming large numbers, covering millions, billions, trillions, milliards and the Greek myriad, with James Grime and Tony Padilla.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2014 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Toucan · 2014-02 · on “Has goto fail been fixed yet?”
I don't think that's right. 10^6 is a million in both languages. 10^9 used to be a milliard in British English but is no longer used. It is now referred to as a billion. 10^12 used to be a billion in British English but is now referred to as a trillion. Edit: [this video] explains it all quite nicely.
Cites pwinnski · 2018-08 · on “Apple is worth over $1B,000”
A thousand-billion is the old way of referring to numbers, but the UK switch to the American style in the 1970s. Strangely, the old style of billion, thousand-billion, trillion, thousand-trillion, quadrillion, etc, makes much more sense. What is a billion two of, anyway? What is a trillion three of? And so on? [this video]
Cites throw0101a · 2020-08 · on “The ‘-ize’ have it (2012)”
> What other spelling idiosyncrasies are there that I can get on my high horse about? Long and short number scales? * [LINK] Is "billion" a thousand million (10^9) or a million million (10^12)? Numberphile video: * [this video] TL;DR: billion = bi-million = two of 10^6 = 10^{6x2} = 10^12. trillion = tri-million = 10^{6x3} = 10^18, and not 10^12. quad rillion, pent ….
Cites throw0101a · 2022-04 · on “As the scale of science expands, so does the language of prefixes”
See also the video "How big is a billion?" by the Numberphile channel: > We discuss millions, billions, trillions and centillions is this film about the long and short scales. We also touch on quadrillions, sextillions, milliards, billiards and the Greek myriad. * [this video] Does a "billion" have 9 zeros or 12 zeros? * [LINK] * [LINK]
Cites throw0101a · 2022-08 · on “Italy, Intel close to $5B deal for chip factory”
See "How big is a billion?" by Numberphile : * [this video] * [LINK] (Given a choice, I would go with the long system, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the timeline we live in.)
Cites throw0101c · 2022-09 · on “OptiFi Program Incident Report”
MM is for mille-mille (French?), thousand-thousand, so 1000-1000 or 1-000-000. See "How big is a billion?" from Numberphile : * [this video] * [LINK]
Cites throw0101d · 2024-12 · on “Fun facts about SQLite”
> Since SQLite is used extensively in every smartphone, and there are more than 4.0 billion (4.0e9) smartphones in active use, each holding hundreds of SQLite database files, it is seems likely that there are over one trillion (1e12) SQLite databases in active use. I find the scientific notation of the counts amusing given the sometimes different meanings of "billion" and "trillion" (especially with English as a second language): * [LINK] * [this video] * [LINK] (bonus: on French numbers)