How big is a billion? - Numberphile

Numberphile · 1.8M views · 2012-05-24 · 9:42

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

HN links it whenever a thread hits the ambiguity of whether a billion is 10^9 or 10^12.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2014–2024

Topics

Recreational & visual math Language & linguistics

What people said

Toucan · 2014-02 · Recommendation
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: [VIDEO] explains it all quite nicely.
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throw0101d · 2024-12 · Reference
> 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] * [VIDEO] * [LINK] (bonus: on French numbers)
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throw0101c · 2022-09 · Reference
MM is for mille-mille (French?), thousand-thousand, so 1000-1000 or 1-000-000. See "How big is a billion?" from Numberphile : * [VIDEO] * [LINK]
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Sources

Video by Numberphile, played through YouTube.

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