Difference between revisions of "Talk:2091: Million, Billion, Trillion"

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The line that includes "Though people in Britain often use the American definition as of the past few decades" is a bit misleading. In fact, the government of Great Britain announced, proclaimed, and declared that they will officially use the short-scale scheme in 1974. If you live there and are still using the long-scale system, then per your countries leadership you are wrong! The short-scale system is YOUR definition, not the American definition.  Interestingly, we didn't invent the short-scale system because it was brought to the Americas by Europeans before the United States of America was even founded! We just continued to use it because it's all we knew until Randall came along and pointed out how screwed up the rest of the world is! [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 15:46, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
 
The line that includes "Though people in Britain often use the American definition as of the past few decades" is a bit misleading. In fact, the government of Great Britain announced, proclaimed, and declared that they will officially use the short-scale scheme in 1974. If you live there and are still using the long-scale system, then per your countries leadership you are wrong! The short-scale system is YOUR definition, not the American definition.  Interestingly, we didn't invent the short-scale system because it was brought to the Americas by Europeans before the United States of America was even founded! We just continued to use it because it's all we knew until Randall came along and pointed out how screwed up the rest of the world is! [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 15:46, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
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Long live scientific / exponential notation! 16:19, 28 December 2018 (UTC)~

Revision as of 16:19, 28 December 2018


I actually think we have too many names for large numbers. It's really only necessary to introduce a new name when you reach the square of the previous name. So, we'd still have tens and hundreds, but there's no need for "one thousand, one hundred" when you can just have "eleven hundred". We'd be better off just naming 10^4, 10^8, 10^16, 10^32, and that's already well beyond anything needed for normal usage, with only a handful of names. None of this "quattuordecillion" stuff that no-one can remember without sitting down and working it out. 172.68.86.64 05:32, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

And what you get is a super-weird "double-log" scale! The British (and other nations') usage is correct. Anything above thousand is completely abstract for a human being and intuitively nonlinear (some nations - ancient Greeks and others - go as far as ten thousands, a myriad, but this is it). A thousand squared is already far beyond intuition so it is a good candidate for a new unit representing A BIG NUMBER, plus log scale is a good abstraction allowing for rapid expansion in magnitude. So taking Latin numerals and adding an -illion suffix (except the irregular million) for subsequent powers of 10^6 is a really convenient system. Of course, it goes only as far as ordinary Latin numbers go, then you need to invent something else, but at this point it's only for entertainment. For anything physical you probably would never need a number much larger than a googol. -- 162.158.90.90 09:26, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
I think we should refrain from saying one usage is correct over the other - that's just arrogant and mean. That said, the current explanation states that usage is different between American and British English, but my reading on Wikipedia (which is already hyperlinked in the explanation) states that in recent decades Britain has declared their use of short units and therefore British English is now the same as American English. The only regions where it appears there is still usage of the long system is in French and Spanish speaking regions, as well as some special cases around the world. Don't shoot the messenger - I'm just repeating what it states on the Wikipedia page. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 10:15, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Rereading the Wikipedia page, it was in 1974 that Britain declared their use of the short scale for large numbers. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 10:19, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Actually, Germany also uses the "long" (i.e. natural) scale to this day, and I remember how much trouble I had understanding the American system. As the second comment above states, the long scale is (prefix)-llion = 10^(prefix*6), or (prefix)-lliarde = 10^(prefix*6+3); whereas in the short system, (prefix)-llion = 10^(prefix*3+3), which is rather less obvious, if you have any intuition for numbers (and a little Latin). German Wikipedia tells me that the long scale was invented 1484/1550 by French mathematicians, and the short one in the 17th century in Italy and France by some geniuses that thought when grouping the digits on paper by three instead of six, they should change the group names to make confusion complete. Also, they claim official usage of the short variant is in USA, Brazil, and English-language finance. The names for the systems, however, are from 1975, from yet another French mathematichan, Geneviève Guitel. --Khms (talk) 10:59, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
East Asian languages such as Japanese actually do use the power-4 scale, with the naming being ten, ten x ten = hundred, hundred x hundred = big'ousand, big'ousand x big'ousand = morebiggienoughty, morebiggienoughty x morebiggienoughty = superbiggienoughty, etc.
Crore. Weird word unless you are in or from India. Snezzy (talk) 11:48, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

I said this earlier, and I'm going to say it again - the split between use of the short scale and the long scale is NOT a U.S. thing, nor an Atlantic Ocean thing! Just navigate to the hyperlinked page on Wikipedia, and scroll down to the graphic map showing who uses which system to see this very clearly. The majority of the globe uses the short scale except for the following regions: Europe other than Britain, Iran, some countries in Africa, and some countries in Latin America and South America, as well as French speaking regions in otherwise short-scale countries. Notable non-U.S. short-scale countries include Russia and Australia, along with Eastern South America and most of Africa. It's frustrating when people insist on making something about those U.S.A. people that has nothing to do with us. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 14:51, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Even the line containing the "In Britian" hyperlink does NOT say what the linked page actually states - that Britain uses the short-scale now, although they used the long-scale quite some time ago (before 1974). Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 14:58, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

The line that includes "Though people in Britain often use the American definition as of the past few decades" is a bit misleading. In fact, the government of Great Britain announced, proclaimed, and declared that they will officially use the short-scale scheme in 1974. If you live there and are still using the long-scale system, then per your countries leadership you are wrong! The short-scale system is YOUR definition, not the American definition. Interestingly, we didn't invent the short-scale system because it was brought to the Americas by Europeans before the United States of America was even founded! We just continued to use it because it's all we knew until Randall came along and pointed out how screwed up the rest of the world is! Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 15:46, 28 December 2018 (UTC)


Long live scientific / exponential notation! 16:19, 28 December 2018 (UTC)~