What is a 'Trillion'?
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 35
Likes: 0
From: Up a sago palm
What is a 'Trillion'?
Hi guys,
Got a question from a mate who was reading info on GPS systems. He came up with an interesting quote;
“The accuracy of the caesium clock is soooooo good that it will only lose 1 second over 30000 years.” He then went on to say that it is equivalent to 1 nanosecond or one trillionth of a second.
I knew that…….
What we want to know is how many zero’s is that after the 1, or to the power of what? We ask this because where we come from a billion is a thousand millions but elsewhere it is ‘supposedly’ a million millions……..etc etc.
I have been known to quote ‘squillions’ when referring to girls and hours on type.
Cheers
Got a question from a mate who was reading info on GPS systems. He came up with an interesting quote;
“The accuracy of the caesium clock is soooooo good that it will only lose 1 second over 30000 years.” He then went on to say that it is equivalent to 1 nanosecond or one trillionth of a second.
I knew that…….
What we want to know is how many zero’s is that after the 1, or to the power of what? We ask this because where we come from a billion is a thousand millions but elsewhere it is ‘supposedly’ a million millions……..etc etc.
I have been known to quote ‘squillions’ when referring to girls and hours on type.
Cheers
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 176
Likes: 2
From: Aberdeen
in Mainland Europe you would find the following:
Million - 1,000,000
Milliarde - 1,000,000,000
Billion - 1,000,000,000,000
Billiarde - 1,000,000,000,000,000
Trillion - 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
I don't know if this is correct in the UK or US ........
Woolf
Million - 1,000,000
Milliarde - 1,000,000,000
Billion - 1,000,000,000,000
Billiarde - 1,000,000,000,000,000
Trillion - 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
I don't know if this is correct in the UK or US ........
Woolf
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,188
Likes: 6
From: La Belle Province
Woolf
That used to be how it was in the UK. But the US uses billion for the nineth power of ten (1,000,000,000) and trillion for the 12th power (1,000,000,000,000) and the cultural superiority
of the US has resulted in the UK starting to use US nomenclature. So when Gordon Brown plans on spending a billion pounds, he's being less generous than he might be!
That used to be how it was in the UK. But the US uses billion for the nineth power of ten (1,000,000,000) and trillion for the 12th power (1,000,000,000,000) and the cultural superiority
of the US has resulted in the UK starting to use US nomenclature. So when Gordon Brown plans on spending a billion pounds, he's being less generous than he might be!
