Why is a US billion (10^9) different to a UK billion (10^12)?
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M$4 Answers
In summary, the long scale came first, but the US adopted the short scale; and because of US influence the short scale is now official in most English-speaking countries. The long scale remains in use in most of the rest of Europe as well as other countries whose main languages are European. A few countries, mainly in eastern Europe, use the short scale except that they also use the long-scale term "milliard" to mean 10^9. And much of the Far East uses a completely different system based on myriads.
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M$
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M$The short scale applies the "big number names" billion, trillion, quadrillion such that each larger term is 1000 of the smaller term, so that although you would say tens and hundreds of millions, the thousands of millions are called billions. This greatly simplifies numeration, as is intended by the use of "milliard" (1000 million) and "billiard" (1000 billion) in the long scale.
The long scale increases number names by millions: a billion is a million million, and a trillion is a million billion. France and Italy still use the long scale.
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M$Sunday, June 14, 2009
1 US Dollar = 0.60830 British Pound
1 British Pound (GBP) = 1.64393 US Dollar (USD)
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M$
It wasn't clear to me. But I see what you're asking now.
Are you referring then to the Short vs. Long scales?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
And are you grading the answers or looking for help understanding the answer?
EDIT: Ah I see the small type under the heading for your question. I miss that sometimes. Still new to Mahalo. :)
Hopefully the link above is pertinent but I won't take the fun away from another answerer if they want to paraphrase the answer more to your liking.
Thanks
I'm sorry but it's pretty clear I'm not talking about currency *at all* - but rather, the difference between 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,00.
Hmm - I thought the 10 to the power of 9 vs. 10 to the power of 12 shoulda done it.
Wiki says this on the history:
"The origin of the word "million" seems to derive from the Old French Milion, thought to derive from Old Italian milione, an intensification of mille, a thousand. That is, a "million" is a "big thousand", much as "1728" (a dozen gross) is a "great gross".
edit"
But doesn't really say how either version of the term came into common usage? Or why there ended up being two meanings for it.
So long scale predates short scale by a century and a half? Interesting.