Poll: One Billion

[Shoggoth2588]

I'm in the U.S. and have always understood it like this:

1 = one
10 = ten
100 = hundred
1,000 = thousand
10,000 = ten-thousand
100,000 = hundred-thousand
1,000,000 = million
10,000,000 = ten-million
100,000,000 = hundred-million
1,000,000,000 = billion
10,000,000,000 = ten-billion
100,000,000,000 = hundred-billion
1,000,000,000,000 = trillion
10,000,000,000,000 = ten-trillion
100,000,000,000,000 = hundred-trillion

I have no idea what comes after trillion...I think septillian is up there and, googles are as well. I am also pretty sure that once you get into the hundreds (standard) it gets more difficult to conceptualize things with those higher counters. 3 cats is easy but, trying to imagine 333 is a bit difficult for the human brain.

I hate numbers.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Um... no?
1 Billion = 1,000,000,000
1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000
1,000,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000

So... A better question is, why is UK bad at math?

It's got nothing to do with maths. "Billion" is just a name. In the UK Billion used to refer to 1 million times 1 million and in the US it was 1 Thousand times 1 Million. Officially the UK now uses the word billion to refer to 1 thousand times 1 million but the 1 million times 1 million is still occasionally used.

Hm...ok, I think I've been ninja'd on that one, but there we go.

EDIT: Oh no, there's more...

So the definition of a billion is different for the UK.
That is just silly.

Europe as well, and it's not "silly", it's different.

I don't see why this isn't the same across the world.
The entire point of calling MY billion, a UK thousand million, is retarded.
You don't call a million a thousand thousand, and as far as I know, you don't call anything else a thousand *whatever*.
I like "my" system because thats how I learned it, thats how it makes sense, and because it is consistent throughout, that is how I shall use it.

Because the people of the world have developed different naming conventions for different things.
Go ahead, no one is asking you to change your language, I don't see why you're getting so uptight about it, anyone would think someone had said "your system is bad and wrong and you are stupid" when that's pretty much what you are saying, although your profile has you down as a pro troll so maybe that's to be expected. Numbers are defined mathematically but we still have to give those numbers names, it just so happens that european naming conventions are different to yours.

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

You may notice that long scale (million x million = Billion) came first.

I'm curious as to why "a thousand million" makes sense in any way.

Because it is a thousand million. You know what a million is, you know what a thousand is, there are a thousand millions there. Just like sixteen hundred as opposed to one thousand six hundred.