how to pronounce numbers

[Dieter]

(06-26-2018 07:08 AM)grsbanks Wrote:  

(06-26-2018 05:12 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  having billions be millions², and trillions be billions²... makes use, once again of the multiplicative (decimal placed base system), while the current use seems like an aditive principle once again... Not good in my opinion!

That's different from what I was taught. I was taught that billions were millions^2 and trillions were millions^3

What ?!?-)

I think most of us will agree that a million is 10^6.
So if a billion is this squared, that's 10^12 ?

And a trillion is this again squared, i.e. 10^24 ?
Or millions³, i.e. 10^18 ?

I finally looked this up on Wikipedia and found there are two different definitions ("long scale" and "short scale"). This explains the most names and numbers found in this thread. But not all. ;-)

Take a look at this Wikipedia page. This may shed some light on this issue. Especially you may take a look at the world map in the "Current usage"section.

Dieter