h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, like, I was thinking . . .

I've been carrying around this 'the Earth is four and a half billion years old' thing in my head for a couple of decades now and is that American Billions or European Billions?

I suspect it's American Billions, but it really does make a quite substantial difference.

I'd always assumed it was English billions (i.e., proper ones ) but I'd never thought about it until now. I wonder!

In school, the number I learned was four "Milliarden" - when of course a "Milliarde" is what other places refer to as a billion.

So, to clear things up:
thousand = 1000 x one
million = 1000 x thousand
"Milliarde" = 1000 x million

So, the earth should be something like 4x1000x1000x1000 years old - now you tell me what billion that is.

Y.

Milliarde appears to be an American billion. A 'proper' billion (what we used to use in NZ, but we now use the American one) is
a million times a million.

In other words, a lot

The problem with such numbers is that they are simply inconceivable. It doesn't really matter to me whether earth's age is (to my understanding) very old or older still.

One million million - I don't even know whether there is a name for such a number in German. Oh wait, we do, I just don't know what it is:

Milliarde = 1000x1000
Trilliarde = 1000 Milliarden?
Billion = 1000 Trilliarden?

Or it could be the other way around.

Y.

It's definitely US billions.

The earth is 4.5 Gigayears old - ie. 4.5 x 10^9
ie. 4 500 000 000 years old

The Universe is estimated to be 12.5 Gyears old so having the earth at 4.5 x 10^12 (the old British billion - which incidentally no longer exists as far as a I'm aware) would make for some interesting philosphical discussions

Having googled about a bit it seems that most of Europe uses the old British Billion.
It seems the only country that doesn't use it in Europe is Britain where it was abandoned in the sixties from effectively all use.

That's if the pages I looked at are to be believed anyhow.

Anyone who really makes use of figure of such size from day to day (scientists and the like) will use SI prefixes though as there can be no confusion.
Ie. Kilo (K) = 10^3, Mega (M) = 10^6, Giga (G) = 10^9, Tera (T) = 10^12
You may be interested to know that 10^100 is Google

oops, kilo of course uses a small k

I seem to recall that the US definition of billion was made the SI standard some time ago. Hence the switch to use it.
Although thinking about it as per the post, i.e. 1000x1, 1000x1000, as a series is the first time it has ever made sense to me as to *why* the US chose their way.

Fifty years ago "billion" was used for 10**12 in Britain and for 10**9 in the USA. This was confusing.

At some point a decision was taken by various groups in Britain (for whom numbers greater than 4 were not simply "many") to resolve this confusion. (The groups involved seem to have included the Financial Times and the BBC.) The meaning 10**9 was adopted for "billion", although some people, less and less, continued to use the old meaning. Occasionally a definition and explanation was given.

In the USA it continued to be confidently asserted that 10**12 was the meaning of "billion" in Britain. This is confusing.

(10**9 means, in this context, 10 to the ninth power)

Thanks all.

As an exercise it might be fun to see if anyone could name a situation where the old style billion (ie 10^12) would be a useful phrase to use.
Outside of maths and hardcore science I can't think of one.

So then, what's a kazillion?


az

It's the number of times my son talks about Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/Teen Titans/Simpsons

"hardcore science"

Sounds exciting. Why don't I get to teach that?

B

>> You may be interested to know that 10^100 is Google <<

Well actually 10^100 is a Googol. Google was meant to be Googol but somebody misspelled it.

Donald

**coughs frantically**

B

Nah, wasn't misspelled - was meant to be a play on words, like their new shopping site, Froogle.


az

Or the ever fantastic Booble.

Student: "Professor, in your talk just now you said that our sun will develop into a red giant and incinerate the Earth. Did you say that will be in 5 Million years or 5 Billion years?"
Professor: "5 Billion years."
Student: "Oh, that's OK then."