What's a billion?

[U K Narayan]

ARRggghhh, numbers. I can't digest them properly. Once I was thinking how much was a million and decided to think how many PS2 cases would fit in my room to give me an idea. I'm still curious how many would fit. Maybe 10,000.

Actually, this wouldn't be hard to do at all, all you would need to do is figure out the volume of your room (which can be found by multiplying L*W*H), and the volume of the PS2 cases.

After you find both volumes, just divide the volume of the PS2 cases by the volume of your room.

[BulletMagnet]

...then factor in whatever space you might need to sleep/breathe, etc., heh heh.

[Shatterhand]

Nice thread, hehe

But, what the heck

1 = one
10 = ten
100 = hundred
1000 = thousand
1000000 = a hundrend thousand
1000000000 = a million
1000000000000 = a billion

where am I wrong?

[MovingTarget]

Nice thread, hehe

But, what the heck

1 = one
10 = ten
100 = hundred
1000 = thousand
1000000 = a hundrend thousand
1000000000 = a million
1000000000000 = a billion

where am I wrong?

1000 = one thousand
100,000 = one hundred thousand
1000,000 = one million
1000,000,000 = one billion

[Shatterhand]

YOU are right and I am wrong

Geez, I put one more zero at hundred thousand, and then everything below was wrong.

[MovingTarget]

I still dont know if your joking or not....


No offense intended

[Kiken]

This is the top score in the Gigawing G. high scores thread

1405,5264,8731,30537260 by Rob.

How the bloody hell do you pronunce/write that number?

1405 kei 5264 chou 8731 oku 3053 man 7260.

(fourteen quintillion fifty-five quadrillion two hundred sixty four trillion eight hundred seventy-three billion one hundred thirty million five hundred thirty-seven thousand two hundred and sixty.)

This is why I think all Takumi shmup scores should be written in scientific notation. Cause really... do you need to know anything past the first 4 or 5 digits in terms of score comparison?

1.4055 x 10^19

[llabnip]

I agree, but since -as Alpha 5099 mentioned- this is an international forum with both UK and US (and lots of other countries) members it can potentially cause lot's of confusion. Should we be talking in scientific terms then?

And this, my friends, is why you should buy Trizeal.... where even the high scores have a "classic" limit that you can manage to read and pronounce without ambiguity!

As opposed to Gigawing 2 and Mars Matrix which have so many zeros I have no real idea what order of magnitude my score is... Pinball games (kudos for those of you who linked my moniker to Pinball) did the "score escalation" thing for years... I guess people felt like they got more of thier money's worth if the score was measured in millions, 10's of millions and billions instead of thousands and tens of thousands like the classic machines of the 70's (and the early machines only had 4 digit counters with most small targets, bumpers and slings were 1, 5 or 10 points).

[Minzoku]

Oh, no, and I read the back cover of The Future Dictionary of America which deliberately redefines "billion" as our current "million" in relation to deficit reduction

Now, I'm REALLY confused

[russ]

So... I'm confused. I never knew that a "billion" was interpreted as anything besides a "thousand million (1,000,000,000)". If in fact a "million million" (i.e. the American "trillion") was Europe's "billion", then did higher numbers have the same trend?

For example...

- 1,000,000,000,000 - This is Europe's "billion"
- 1,000,000,000,000,000 - This is the next one up (American "quadrillion"), and would not be a European "trillion", but a "billiard"???
- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 - The next one up (American "quintillion") would have been referred to as "trillion".

Do I have the right idea, or am I completely wrong, am reading into this too much and should never think about this again?

[alpha5099]

So... I'm confused. I never knew that a "billion" was interpreted as anything besides a "thousand million (1,000,000,000)". If in fact a "million million" (i.e. the American "trillion") was Europe's "billion", then did higher numbers have the same trend?

For example...

- 1,000,000,000,000 - This is Europe's "billion"
- 1,000,000,000,000,000 - This is the next one up (American "quadrillion"), and would not be a European "trillion", but a "billiard"???
- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 - The next one up (American "quintillion") would have been referred to as "trillion".

Do I have the right idea, or am I completely wrong, am reading into this too much and should never think about this again?

I'm not sure they call it a billiard, but yes, I think you have it right. The new names for numbers come every six digits, instead of 3. So, you could right it as 1,000000,000000, which would be a billion.

[Minzoku]

Great, now the Square One "Billion" rap is in my head

"One million is big... one billion is bigger...
One thousand times one million! That's one billion!"

PUBLIC BROADCASTING DOES NOT LIE, SO THERE

[Zach Keene]

PUBLIC BROADCASTING DOES NOT LIE, SO THERE

The story you are about to see is a fib, but it's short.

[dave4shmups]

Oh crap, not a topic on math (the evil of all evils)! kidding