How big is a billion? - Numberphile on HackerTube: recommended by 1 Hacker News commenter across 1 month, 2014–2024.
explainer · evergreen
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.
HN links it whenever a thread hits the ambiguity of whether a billion is 10^9 or 10^12.
“explains it all quite nicely.”
7 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
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: ▶ this video explains it all quite nicely.
in “Has goto fail been fixed yet?” · View on HN
> 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] * ▶ this video * [link] (bonus: on French numbers)
in “Fun facts about SQLite” · View on HN
MM is for mille-mille (French?), thousand-thousand, so 1000-1000 or 1-000-000. See "How big is a billion?" from Numberphile : * ▶ this video * [link]
in “OptiFi Program Incident Report” · View on HN
See "How big is a billion?" by Numberphile : * ▶ this video * [link] (Given a choice, I would go with the long system, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the timeline we live in.)
in “Italy, Intel close to $5B deal for chip factory” · View on HN
See also the video "How big is a billion?" by the Numberphile channel: > We discuss millions, billions, trillions and centillions is this film about the long and short scales. We also touch on quadrillions, sextillions, milliards, billiards and the Greek myriad. * ▶ this video Does a "billion" have 9 zeros or 12 zeros? * [link] * [link]
in “As the scale of science expands, so does the language of prefixes” · View on HN
> What other spelling idiosyncrasies are there that I can get on my high horse about? Long and short number scales? * [link] Is "billion" a thousand million (10^9) or a million million (10^12)? Numberphile video: * ▶ this video TL;DR: billion = bi-million = two of 10^6 = 10^{6x2} = 10^12. trillion = tri-million = 10^{6x3} = 10^18, and not 10^12. quad rillion, pent ….
in “The ‘-ize’ have it (2012)” · View on HN
A thousand-billion is the old way of referring to numbers, but the UK switch to the American style in the 1970s. Strangely, the old style of billion, thousand-billion, trillion, thousand-trillion, quadrillion, etc, makes much more sense. What is a billion two of, anyway? What is a trillion three of? And so on? ▶ this video
in “Apple is worth over $1B,000” · View on HN