BS: How much is 1 Billion ?

Subject: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 08:22 AM

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the
Word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in
One of it's releases.

A.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were
Living in the Stone Age.

D.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E.
A billion Pounds ago was only 13 hours and 12 minutes, At the rate our government Is spending it.

Building Permit Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Income Tax
Unemployment Tax
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Petrol/Diesel Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
(tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Local Tax
Value Added Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago...
And our nation was one of the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world...
And Mum stayed home to raise the kids.

What the hell happened?????

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 08:42 AM

I like this answer from WikiAnswers -

A "billion" is a thousand million in the United States or a million times million in Great Britain. "Bouillon" is a clear soup, while "bullion" is uncoined gold or silver.

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 09:20 AM

A billion seconds ago it was 1959


One minute = 60 seconds

One hour = 60 * 60 seconds = 3,600 seconds

One day = 24 * 60 * 60 seconds = 86,400 seconds

One year (average) = 365.24 * 86,400 seconds = 31,556,736 seconds

One billion seconds = 1,000,000,000 / 31,556,736 = 31.69 years

Today is March 08, 2010, the 67th day of 2010, or approximately 2010.18

2010.18 – 31.69 = 1978.49, approximately the 179 th day of 1978, or approximately 01 July 1978

In about three days, "one billion seconds ago" will be on the Fourth of July, 1978.

1959 + 31.69 = 1990.69 or around July 1990, so the calculations quoted (without verification) were done ca. 20 years ago, i.e.   sometime between July 1990 and July 1991 if rounding off is allowed.


I suppose 20 years isn't really long enough to expect news reporters to have learned to count, or to verify their stories; but it really is a bit sad.

John

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 09:34 AM

DeG, I think Wiki might have got that wrong.

I'm a UK accountant, and in the world I'm obliged to inhabit, a billion has always been determined as one thousand x one million.

I've always understood that a million-million is the US definition of a billion.

Someone out there please tell me - am I correct, or have I laboured under a mis-conception this past 45 years (and possibly bankrupted a lot of people?) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 09:47 AM

"I've always understood that a million-million is the US definition of a billion."

The US definition is "thousand million = billion" and that is in common useage throughout the world, UK included, even though the "official" definition in the UK is "million million = billion".

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 09:49 AM

"I've always understood that a million-million is the US definition of a billion."

The US definition is "thousand million = billion" and that is in common useage throughout the world, UK included, even though the "official" definition in the UK is "million million = billion".

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 09:52 AM

So, to clarify, a UK million = 10 to the power of 6

but a US million = 10 to the power of 5?

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Monique
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 09:57 AM

Interesting Wiki page about Long and short scales where it explains it all.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 09:58 AM

No - A million is always 10 to the 6 (1 with 6 0's)

US billion = 10 to the 9

UK billion = 10 to the 12

I wouldn't worry about it in financial terms backwoodsman - I think that in terms of pounds or dollars a billion has always been considered to be 10 to the 9 worldwide. But then again I could be wrong too!

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 10:03 AM

Although I can recall when one had to determine "by association" whether a Brit news story used the conventional world-wide billion at 10⁹, revision of the AP Style Manual about 50 years ago mandated that suspect Brit stories be "converted" from the 10¹² usage for everybody except the Brits.

Even the BBC printed news reports now use the 10⁹ value, so far as I've noticed in about the past 30 years. I don't get direct radio/TV BBC exposure to be certain that they've fully moved into the real world there, but suspect they have pretty much abandoned the archaic 10¹².

If the "British billion" were to be applied to the first post here, one B-billion seconds ago would be somewhere around 1,000 BCE; but unfortunately most news reporters still wouldn't have run the numbers so they might have posted the obsolete quotes anyway.

John

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 10:06 AM

Are trillions different too?

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: G-Force
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 10:47 AM

A good example of how lazy usage (or mis-usage) causes confusion.

When I was at school (in UK), a billion was a million million. There was a perfectly good word milliard for a thousand million, but nobody used it (it is used in German). Gradually we seem to have adopted the American usage of a billion equalling a thousand million, but it has never been made official as far as I know.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 10:57 AM

Mr. Happy -

Rumor had it, 50 years ago, that the Brits considered a billion a million millions, or 10¹², and a trillion a million billions, or 10¹⁸; but with that usage a trillion is such a large number (1 followed by 18 zeros) that it's hardly ever used.

The British theory was that a billion was a "million squared" so a trillion should be a "million cubed."

Very few Brits can count that far, with the possible exception of a very few in the London "square mile" financial district who "earn" about that much in a decade or so.

For the rest of the world, you just add three zeros for each step, making each step 1,000 times the previous one:

million = 10⁶ = 1,000,000

billion = 10⁹ = 1,000,000,000

trillion = 10¹² = 1,000,000,000,000

and so forth, continuing - one supposes - to the petillion = ????

For very large numbers, one might of course use the google (10¹⁰⁰ or 1 followed by 100 zeros) and the googleplex (google¹⁰⁰ = 10^10,000) but the googleplex is mostly a conversation piece, since it can be argued that there may not be that many electrons in the entire universe. (But I haven't personally counted them.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 11:03 AM

For REALLY large numbers, you have to talk about a Brazillion!

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 11:15 AM

Nah that's a large Playtex

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 11:26 AM

Some really BIG numbers here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB5VXJXxnNU

watch & learn!!

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 11:28 AM

According to my Langenschedit's Pocket Dictionary

Billion : trillion


Billions, trillions etc used to be easy to work out, a billion was a million to the power of two, a trillion was a million to the power of three, a quadrillion to the power of four. I believe it's possible to derive a formula for the short versions, but I can't be bothered working it out.

The outcome is that I've stopped using the words and just say ten to the twelve, ten to the eighteen etc.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 11:28 AM

Is there any truth in the rumour that when George W learned that several Brazilian people had been killed in a landslide he asked how many that was?

:D (eG)

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: gnu
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 02:13 PM

I thought a Brazillion was a bikinin wax.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 02:29 PM

Bloody Hell! Wish I'd kept it zipped up! Didn't realise WW3 would break out!! :-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 02:30 PM

Trillian.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 03:24 PM

A billion dollars ain't much anymore.
Locally, the City staff proposed a $7.9 billion 2010 operating budget for Calgary.
City council members are trying to trim a paltry few millions from it.
When I first came to Calgary, a paltry few million was enough to run the city.

Now if I can trim a few pennies from my budget .....

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: MudGuard
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 03:35 PM

not throughout the world.

In Germany,
1 Million is 1 000 000.
1 Milliarde is 1 000 000 000.
1 Billion is 1 000 000 000 000
1 Billiarde is 1 000 000 000 000 000
1 Trillion is 1 000 000 000 000 000 000

and so on
till you are post the reasonable numbers, i.e. when you reach

1 Postillion


;-)

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 04:18 PM

Wouldn't life be much easier if we got people to accept the mathematical exponent convention, 10e4 for 10000 and so on. We could leave off the 10, as it's always there, and refer to 1000000 as "eesix", 1000000000 as "eenine" and so forth. It also future- proofs us against inflation, it's much easier to talk about "eetwentyseven" than a million billion trillion.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 04:27 PM

In Cockerknee Riming slang:

One Billion = The Banker's Bonus = The Wankers Own Us


(so I heard...) ;0)

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 04:44 PM

Paul Burke -

Since "e" is a defined and frequently used constant (e = 2.71828..., the Base of Natural Logarithms) , 10e6 is ambiguous because it could be read as the constant "e" to the sixth power (approximately 403.42717), multiplied by 10, or 10*e⁶ = 4034.2717.

The preferred method of writing it is 10E6, or 10^6, or the preferred 10⁶.

(Math grammarians may be even more testy about sloppiness than even the English majors working at McDonalds.)

Most simple computer "in-line" calculator programs, like the "eq field" in Word, use the "^" for the exponentiation indicator, but some programs notate it with the "E," and will accomodate the somewhat sloppy "e."

Note that in html, including here, you can "superscript" using A^N to get A^N and you can "subscript" using A<sub>N>/sub> to get A_N, which is much the prettiest.

And _{you can daisy chain repeated subs and supers}.

J^ohn

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 04:47 PM

I always thought the confusion came about like this:
If you write in in digits, it makes sense that every triplet of 0's is called another name altogether: thousand, million, billion...
But if you write it in words it goes like this:
Thousand...Ten Thousand...Hundred Thousand...Thousand Thousand but let's call that something else - a Million.
Next: Million, Ten Million, Hundred Million, Thousand Million, Ten Thousand Million, Hundred Thousand Million, Million Million but let's call that something else - a Billion.
I agree with Paul that it would be easier if we used the exponent system but the bankers wouldn't be able to understand such mathematical niceties

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 05:13 PM

There is a simple, and fully standard method notation that can be use, from the International Metric definitions.

$1,000 = 1K$ (KiloBucks)
$1,000,000 = 1M$ (MegaBucks)
$1,000,000,000 = 1G$ (GigaBucks)
$1,000,000,000,000 = 1T$ (TeraBucks)

etc.

Or, more useful for my income:

$0.001 = 1m$ (millibuck)
$0.000001 = 1u$ (or for purists 1μ$ - microbuck)

etc.

John

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Tootler
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 05:43 PM

And if you go on further, you will get

Peta = 10¹⁵
Exa = 10¹⁸

You need these big numbers when you are looking at energy on a large scale and if our politicians go on spending the way they have been, we will probably need them for money as well.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Ed T
Date: 08 Mar 10 - 08:08 PM

"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million."    Arnold Schwarzenegger

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 03:45 AM

Me too.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 09:40 AM

Didn't the Jolly Swag Man have his Billi on ?

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 11:41 AM

I've always considered our system to be more rational and to be more easy to deal with:

a "Gaz"/illion is a million to the power of "gaz". So you only have to know the Latin numbers which most people know anyway and can easily write down any large number.

An octillion? Is a million to the power of eight which means you have to write one "one" and then eight times six (for a million has six zeros), that is 48, zeros. There is no easy system for the new English understanding of Illions.

And that coming from a German who has grown up with our silly counting system which is known to be error prone even after years of training. We say the digits of a large number starting with first and then continuing with the second and so on like all (?) European languages. But we change the order in the last two digits and that for each new multiple of thousand. So for most others 123,456,789 would be (in their respective languages) "1hundred 2wenty three million 4hundred 5ty six thousand 7hundred 8ty nine" but we say "1hundred three 2wenty million, 4hundred six 5ty thousand, 7hundred nine 8ty".

This system is known to impair learning and understanding and leads to more transposition errors when copying numbers than in other languages, but whenever someone suggests a change of that system Germans reacts as irrational as the British when they feel their old measures are threatened.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 01:24 PM

JiK: it makes no difference, since in English English at least, there's no difference in pronunciation between the capital and lower case. And if printf will accept it, that's quite good enough for me!

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Monique
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 01:42 PM

Not all Wolfgang, Breton also changes the order of the two last digits. French system isn't much rational either with its "sixty and ten -sixty and eleven... four twenties... four twenties and ten...etc". Btw, French numeration goes,
10⁶ = 1 million
10⁹ = 1 milliard
10¹² = 1 billion
10¹⁵ = 1 billiard
10¹⁸ = 1 trillion
10²¹ = 1 trilliard... but we seldom say anything larger than "milliards" with the corresponding words, we'd say "a thousand milliards" not "1 billion" in everyday life.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 07:50 PM

I think I've worked it out.

A 'n'illion (US) is ten to the six times ten to the three to the n minus one (I think). I knew that maths degree would come in handy some day!

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: mousethief
Date: 09 Mar 10 - 10:49 PM

Can y'all do it in base 12 now?

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: open mike
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 01:01 AM

hmmm..just got this today...a quote from Will Rogers....1931

"I see where congress has alloted two billion dollars for the relief of land banks. You know you can't spend a billion dollars in the old fashioned way. You could put a strong man in a treasury warehouse full of one-hundred dollar bills, give him a scoop shovel and he couldn't shovel out that much money in a life time. But I tell ya, one day we're going to get comfortable with the word 'trillion'. And you'll read in the paper, 'Congress has alloted 2 trillion dollars for the relief of the descendants of a proud and noble race known as wall streeters'. Now I'm sure this slight appropriation will be made because, after all, they are wards of the government."

better get scoopin'

i seem to recall several comparisons about a billion like if people
held hands around the world...or if dollar bills were laid end to end around the world at the equator...it would go so many times 'round..

also found this:1 billion people across the world go hungry every day.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 08:50 AM

The statistic I always liked was that one could spend $1,000 per day, and it would take 2,738 years to spend a billion ($10⁹).

(I'm quoting the number of years from memory, so it might be ± 2. I'm sure one of our mathematicians will check it for me.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 09:49 AM

There was a young man of Bengal
Who had a mathematical ball
The sum of its weight, plus its square, minus eight
Was exactly three-fifths of f**k-all.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 12:23 PM

Monique,

I should know better than to say "all European languages" when I know about just five of them well enough to be able to count.

"Quatre vingt dix neuf" is surely an awkward way to count. One night in Brussels when I asked for directions to a restaurant I got the response: "Vous prenez l'autobus numéro nonante cinq jusqu' à..."

I understood without hesitation but something felt wrong and I only realized some seconds later what it was.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 12:35 PM

Brussels is a wonderful place to go to the ticket desk and say

"Can I have un carte pour dix jorneys Alstublieft?"

They used to look at me funny but I always got the metro ticket I wanted:-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 02:25 PM

Thanks to Monique for posting the link to the Wikipedia article Long and short scales, which explains the situation beautifully.

There are several bits of misinformation in this thread that would have been avoided if people had only read it before they posted. (But, to give credit where it is due, those who got it wrong used the qualifiers "I think," "as far as I know," etc.)

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 10:50 PM

What should not also be overlooked is what happened to Megabyte and Gigabyte...

Mathematically, they were all to base 2 - and went up by factors of 1024, now they are defined in terms of 1000...

sigh....

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: GUEST,mathlad
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 05:11 AM

All these 'big' numbers pale into insignificance when compared to Graham's Number

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: G-Force
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 06:47 AM

Well, having just read the Wikipedia article linked to by Monique and Jim Dixon, all I can say is I'm glad I don't live in Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 10:04 PM

Not much, if you say it quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: How much is 1 Billion ?
From: Rowan
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 10:24 PM

All those 10s!

Now that somebody has mentioned binary, is it OK to say there are 10 sorts of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't?

Cheers, Rowan