Trillion is a number with two distinct definitions:
Originally, the United Kingdom used the long scale trillion. However, since 1974, official UK statistics have used the short scale. Since the 1950s, the short scale has been increasingly used in technical writing and journalism, although the long scale definition still has some limited usage. [1] [2]
American English has always used the short scale definition.
Other countries use the word trillion (or words cognate to it) to denote either the long scale or short scale trillion. For details, see current usage.
During the height of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe in 2008, people became accustomed to speaking about their daily expenses in terms of trillions. [2]
When Italy used the lira as currency, eventually converted at about 2,000 lira to the euro, it was found that Italians were more comfortable with words for large numbers such as trillion than British people. [2]
Whilst the words billion and trillion, or variations thereof were first used by French mathematicians in the 15th century, [2] the word trillion was first used in English in the 1680s and comes from the Italian word trilione. [3]
The word originally meant the third power of one million. [2] [3] As a result, it was mainly used to express the concept of an enormous number, similar to the words zillion and gazillion. However, it was more commonly used in the US. [2]
The word aeon, also spelled eon, originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timeless" or "for eternity". It is a Latin transliteration from the ancient Greek word ὁ αἰών, from the archaic αἰϝών meaning "century". In Greek, it literally refers to the timespan of one hundred years. A cognate Latin word aevum or aeuum for "age" is present in words such as longevity and mediaeval.
Chinese numerals are words and characters used to denote numbers in written Chinese.
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term. Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions, and extensional definitions. Another important category of definitions is the class of ostensive definitions, which convey the meaning of a term by pointing out examples. A term may have many different senses and multiple meanings, and thus require multiple definitions.
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one-eighth of a mile, equivalent to any of 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths, and agriculture, where it is used to measure rural field lengths and distances.
Myriad is technically the number 10,000 ; in that sense, the term is used in English almost exclusively for literal translations from Greek, Latin or Sinospheric languages, or when talking about ancient Greek numerals.
An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic distributions are common in nature and considering the order of magnitude of values sampled from such a distribution can be more intuitive. When the reference value is 10, the order of magnitude can be understood as the number of digits minus one in the base-10 representation of the value. Similarly, if the reference value is one of some powers of 2 since computers store data in a binary format, the magnitude can be understood in terms of the amount of computer memory needed to store that value.
The parsec is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to 3.26 light-years or 206,265 astronomical units (AU), i.e. 30.9 trillion kilometres. The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and is defined as the distance at which 1 AU subtends an angle of one arcsecond. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is about 1.3 parsecs from the Sun: from that distance, the gap between the Earth and the Sun spans slightly less than 1/3600 of one degree of view. Most stars visible to the naked eye are within a few hundred parsecs of the Sun, with the most distant at a few thousand parsecs, and the Andromeda Galaxy at over 700,000 parsecs.
The tonne is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton and the long ton. It is equivalent to approximately 2,204.6 pounds, 1.102 short tons, and 0.984 long tons. The official SI unit is the megagram (Mg), a less common way to express the same amount.
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word novella derives from the Italian novella meaning a short story related to true facts.
A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is equal to one hundred thousand, and is written as 1,00,000).
Different cultures used different traditional numeral systems for naming large numbers. The extent of large numbers used varied in each culture. Two interesting points in using large numbers are the confusion on the term billion and milliard in many countries, and the use of zillion to denote a very large number where precision is not required.
English number words include numerals and various words derived from them, as well as a large number of words borrowed from other languages.
This list contains selected positive numbers in increasing order, including counts of things, dimensionless quantities and probabilities. Each number is given a name in the short scale, which is used in English-speaking countries, as well as a name in the long scale, which is used in some of the countries that do not have English as their national language.
Nicolas Chuquet was a French mathematician. He invented his own notation for algebraic concepts and exponentiation. He may have been the first mathematician to recognize zero and negative numbers as exponents.
Many languages have words expressing indefinite and fictitious numbers—inexact terms of indefinite size, used for comic effect, for exaggeration, as placeholder names, or when precision is unnecessary or undesirable. One technical term for such words is "non-numerical vague quantifier". Such words designed to indicate large quantities can be called "indefinite hyperbolic numerals".
Two naming scales for large numbers have been used in English and other European languages since the early modern era: the long and short scales. Most English variants use the short scale today, but the long scale remains dominant in many non-English-speaking areas, including continental Europe and Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. These naming procedures are based on taking the number n occurring in 103n+3 or 106n and concatenating Latin roots for its units, tens, and hundreds place, together with the suffix -illion.
The Indian numbering system is used in the Indian subcontinent to express large numbers. The terms lakh or 1,00,000 and crore or 1,00,00,000 are the most commonly used terms in Indian English to express large numbers in the system.
The long and short scales are two of several naming systems for integer powers of ten which use some of the same terms for different magnitudes.
Jehan Adam was a French 15th century mathematician. He was secretary to Nicholle Tilhart, who was notary, secretary and auditor of accounts to King Louis XI of France.
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: