What's a billion times a billion?

Question

serious answers please.

Answer 1

A billion is a thousand million, so it would be 1,000,000,000.
Therefore a billion times a billion would be 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 which is known as a quintillion.

Numbers like this are often written as powers of ten, so a billion would be 10^9 and a quintillion would be 10^18, which are certainly more compact when writing them.

In the UK, a billion used to be a million times a million, which would make it 1,000,000,000,000, or 10^12, and a trillion was this multiplied by a million again, which would give 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 10^18 - the same as a quintillion.
However, some time ago, it was decided that the UK billion and trillion would be the same as the US equivalents. I was a little upset at that, as there had always been the idea that things in America were bigger than elsewhere, yet, ironically, our numbers were bigger than their numbers :)

These numbers also have prefixes. The prefix for 1,000 is "kilo", hence "kilogram" and "kilometre". The prefix for 1,000,000 is "mega", as in "megaton". Here is a list of prefixes for fractions and multiples of 10:

Less than one
milli 10^-31/1,000
micro10^-61/1,000,000
nano10^-91/1,000,000,000
pico 10^-121/1,000,000,000,000
femto10^-151/1,000,000,000,000,000
atto 10^-181/1,000,000,000,000,000,000
zecto10^-211/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
yocto10^-241/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Greater than one
kilo 10^31,000
mega10^61,000,000
giga 10^91,000,000,000
tera 10^121,000,000,000,000
peta10^151,000,000,000,000,000
exa 10^181,000,000,000,000,000,000
zetta10^211,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
yotta10^241,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
This means that a billion metres is a gigametre, and a billion billion metres is an exametre.

Having been (mostly) serious so far, and as it's the holiday season, I hope you won't mind me being a little less than serious with some other examples that you might want to try out on your friends ...
10^-18boys = 1 attoboy
10^-18misers =1 attomiser
10^-15bismols =1 femtobismol
10^-12boos = 1 picoboo
10^-9goats = 1 nanogoat
10^-6phones =1 microphone
10^-1arnez = 1 deciarnez *
10^1cards = 1 decacards
10^9los = 1 gigalo
10^12bulls = 1 terabull
* Dezi Arnez was Lucille Ball's husband, in "I Love Lucy"

Answer 2

1 E 18

Answer 3

A billion is 10^9 (or 1,000,000,000)

Thus 10^9 x 10^9 = 10^18 (or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000)

The metric prefix for this is "Exa-"

Answer 4

It depends on the local customs for naming numbers in your country.

In the US, where a billion is 1,000,000,000, the answer is a quintillion.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000

Using the old style in the UK and elsewhere where a billion is 1,000,000,000,000
then the answer is an old style quadrillion: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Answer 5

1 x 10^18 I think there is no name for it though....

Answer 6

a quintillion, which is a one with 18 zeros (1000000000000000000)

Answer 7

quintillion

Answer 8

1,000,000,000,000

Answer 9

1,000,000,000,000,000,000