How many millions are in a trillion?
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How many millions are in a trillion?
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#2What a trillion dollars looks like:
http://www.zee.me/blog/2009/03/what-does-one-trillion-dollar...
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#3Depends what country you're from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
Personally I'm in the Long scale camp. It makes far more sense. That's why I was confused to not see the 'correct' answer listed :)
For example in the Short scale, their logic is: billion= 1,000 ^ (1 + 2). So for example TRIllion, the tri is pretty unintuitive. It has 3+(3 * TRI) zeros.
In the Long scale, the logic is trillion=1,000,000^TRI or 6 * TRI zeros.
I had no idea the UK had 'officially' abandoned the Long scale in 1970s, while the rest of Europe still officially uses it. I'm sure I was taught Long scale. Shame.
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#4I've heard the idea bandied about that we should just drop the ambiguous names (w.r.t., the whole long/short scale thing) and start using scientific notation.
It is much more obvious that 10^12/10^6 = 10^6
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#5That's what you get for not using the metric system.
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#6Depends what country you're from. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales Personally I'm in the Long scale camp. It makes far more sense. That's why I was confused to not see the 'correct' answer listed :) For example in the Short scale, their logic is: billion= 1,000 ^ (1 + 2). So for example TRIllion, the tri is pretty unintuitive. It has 3+(3 * TRI) zeros. In the Long scale, the logic is trillion=1,000,…
I always thought of it as a language-specific thing, with English speaking countries using short scale, and other European countries using long scale (I always thought that the French "billion" being equivalent to the English "trillion" was basically just an issue of translation). I never realized it's quite that complicated and inconsistent.
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#7Depends what country you're from. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales Personally I'm in the Long scale camp. It makes far more sense. That's why I was confused to not see the 'correct' answer listed :) For example in the Short scale, their logic is: billion= 1,000 ^ (1 + 2). So for example TRIllion, the tri is pretty unintuitive. It has 3+(3 * TRI) zeros. In the Long scale, the logic is trillion=1,000,…
In the long scale, it's like this:
10^3 = thousand
10^6 = million
10^9 = milliard
10^12 = billion
10^15 = billiard
10^18 = trillion
So there are 10^18/10^6 = 10^12 millions in a trillion. In the long scale, they'd call that a billion. So the two correct answers are "there are a million millions in a trillion" and "there are a billion millions in a trillion"
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#8I've heard the idea bandied about that we should just drop the ambiguous names (w.r.t., the whole long/short scale thing) and start using scientific notation. It is much more obvious that 10^12/10^6 = 10^6
Why is it much more obvious? I would probably understand if I knew how you went about solving the problem. I am quite curious as to your thought process!
My thought process involved these components:
1. Remembering heuristics for proportions. 2. Remembering that Million -> billion -> trillion 3. Knowing that 1000 million = 1 billion 4. Knowing that 1000 billion = 1 trillion 5. Knowing that 1000 * 1000 = 1 million
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#9That's what you get for not using the metric system.
This raises the question of whether British children are proportionately better at math problems involving proportionality!
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#10I've heard the idea bandied about that we should just drop the ambiguous names (w.r.t., the whole long/short scale thing) and start using scientific notation. It is much more obvious that 10^12/10^6 = 10^6
Why is it much more obvious? I would probably understand if I knew how you went about solving the problem. I am quite curious as to your thought process! My thought process involved these components: 1. Remembering heuristics for proportions. 2. Remembering that Million -> billion -> trillion 3. Knowing that 1000 million = 1 billion 4. Knowing that 1000 billion = 1 trillion 5. Knowing that 1000 * 1000 = 1 million
Dividing numbers with exponents is simple - you just subtract.
A^B / A^C = A^(B-C)
This is an obvious result of the rules of arithmetic. To use a concrete example: A^3/A^2 = A because A^3 is A x A x A divided by A^2 is A x A, then the two A's on the bottom cancel out with two of the A's on the top - leaving only one A on the top.