how many million in a billion? The UK version of this answer only please?

Question

how many million in a billion? The UK version of this answer only please

Answer 1

So now we know how many are in a million and how many are in a billion, but how many are in a Brazilian? :-)

Answer 2

In the UK a billion was originally one million million, 1,000,000,000,000. It has over the years now slipped into line with the US version, which is one thousand million, 1,000,000,000. The UK name for this number was a milliard, and that can be found in books written at least up until the last couple of decades. In Patrick Moore's more recent books he has avoided using the term 'billion' precisely because of this international confusion about the definition of the term.

For the benefit of any US readers who might be thinking how absurd it is that we Brits name the numbers that way, let me point out the logic:

1 million = 1 million (1 million ^1)
1 billion = 1 million million (1 million ^ 2)
1 trillion = 1 million million million (1 million ^3)
1 quadrillion = 1 million million million million (1 million ^ 4)
1 quintillion = 1 million million million million million (1 million ^5)

The prefix before the '-illion' section matches the index number, and hence the number of groups of 6 zeros: so 1 quintillion is 1 million ^ 5 ('quint' = 5), so has five groups of six zeros, or 30 zeros. This seems an eminently sensible way to describe the numbers. I can find no such corresponding logic in the US numbering system.

Answer 3

'Yoof' will answer this as 1000. But originally in UK a Billion was a million million. This is pure math. The concept of a billion being a thousand million originates from US where for accounting and reporting purposes it was easier to report a value as for example 1.5 billion and not 1500 million.

Answer 4

There are two scales, the long scale (English scale) where a billion is 10^12 and the short scale (American scale) where a billion is 10^9, both are used and both are correct and they can co-exist, It is not an either/or situation,

The long scale was developed by the Frnech mathematician Nicolas Chuquet in the kate 15th Century.

Obviously if he was writing before 1492, Columbus had not sailed the Ocean Blue yet, and there was no America let alone an American system of counting above 1 million, for getting on for another 300 years.

Chuquet was the author of the earliest system for names of large numbers by combining Latin-derived prefixes with the suffix -illion.

In his great work, Triparty en la science des nombres, Chuquet showed a huge number divided into groups of six digits, and in a short passage he states that the groups can be called

"million, the second mark byllion, the third mark tryllion, the fourth quadrillion, the fifth quyillion, the sixth sixlion, the seventh septyllion, the eighth ottyllion, the ninth nonyllion and so on with others as far as you wish to go. "

Much later, in France and in the USA, a different short scale system became established where the term billion signifies 10^9. Last century, England and other English-speaking countries joined the USA and other countries in using the short scale system; whereas, France rejoined Germany, most of Europe, and much of the world in the Chuquet long scale, system.

So sorry to be blunt, but asserting that the system you happen to know (whichever one you are rooting for) is the only possible system only shows your ignorance of the history of how the two scales developed and your ignorance of how people in other parts of the world do things.

I am reminded of Jim the runaway slave in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (who rafts with Huck along the Missisippi to escape slavery) who could not conceive that across the ocean there were people who did not speak English but spoke a language called French.

Answer 5

10

Answer 6

1 million millions in a billion

Answer 7

In UK I'm sure its still officially a million million - that's 1, followed by 12 0's. US is a thousand million, that's 1, followed by 9 0's. I would however settle for the US version....where is Branson when you need him - he'd let us all know.....Sir Richard?

Answer 8

The strict UK answer would be a million, as in one billion is a million million.

But these days, certainly in UK businesses, the US version is more commonly used (one thousand million).

http://www.hybridwalnut.com/Billion.html

EDIT: Your question got me thinking and I've asked a side question on it: How many litres in a billion gallons?
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070427051158AAkSIT0

Answer 9

But surely if a billion is a million million then billionaires wouldnt exist - surely no one really has millions of millions of pounds - the whole concept of having a millions lots of a million pound is weird ... surely not?

Answer 10

I'm laughing at how many different answers there are here.

In the UK, a billion is one million millions.

It's the US who've decided to make it less so they can 'cope' with it better. Theirs is a thousand millions.