Nov172009
How many zeroes in a billion billion?
Filed under General by david brooks at 12:21 pm
Depends: Is that a long-scale billion or a short-scale billion? (Confused - check the wikipedia article on “Long and short scales“) I ask because of this wonderful newspaper correction, spotted via Regret the Error.
LAST week’s NIE resource on Science questions answered by CSIRO incorrectly stated that there are 12 zeros in one billion billion. There are 24 zeros if a million times a million is doubled. Many now regard a billion as a thousand times a million. This would be 18 zeros when doubled.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
The correction itself needs to be corrected. There are 12 zeros if a million times a million is doubled (two million million). There are 24 zeros if a million times a million is *squared* (one million million million million).
November 19th, 2009 at 7:11 am
This is a correction from a British publication (as I should have mentioned), and the use of “doubled” is what you and I would think of as “squared”
December 1st, 2009 at 4:11 am
Well nice to know that how many zeroes are in billion billion.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:18 am
It depends on whether you're in the United States or the UK. What the British call a billion is what we call a trillion; it has twelve zeroes. Here in the US a billion has nine zeroes. haha