Numbers: what to call 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000?
Apparently, there's a lot of fuss going around over what to call a number with 27 zeros. It's easy if you've got a decent education.
Most Recent - This Section
Happy Easter from The Chief Officers' NetworkNumbers: what to call 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000?
Welcome to The Year of the Ox
Merry Christmas 2008
Fraud: Bagger bagged for allegedly bagging profits
Most Recent - Whole Site
Sanctions: US approves transfer of anti-surveillance software to IranF1: it's not just the Krauts who were sour at Hockenheim
Aviation: Pakistan's Airblue Airbus crashes in Pakistan's worst aircrash
BizLawCentral: US Treasury's guidance on lawyer's fees in blocked funds cases
The Risk Professional: USA reaches 100 failed banks so far in 2010
Most Recent - BizNewsSelect
The Society of Anti Money Laundering Professionals: launch of Accredited Training Course Provider schemeThe Society of Anti Money Laundering Professionals launches new membership class
Quick To Learn More expands and updates content units
Hong Kong's latest foreign currency reserve assets figures released
International reserves of BNM as at 31 December 2009
Most Recent - BankingInsuranceSecurities.Com
FI frauds: Advance Fee Fraud - Speed Trust Companywmlro.com: US court separates fraud and laundering its proceeds
FIs closed: Community Security Bank, New Prague, Minnesota, USA
FIs closed: Thunder Bank, Sylvan Grove, Kansas, USA
FIs closed: Home Valley Bank, Cave Junction, Oregon, USA
A million is easy: it has six zeros.
A billion is easy: it has 12 - that's because it's a million to the power 2 hence the bi in billion.
A trillion is easy: it's 18 - that is a million to the power 3.
And so a million to the power 4 is a quadrillion - and it has 24.
So 27 zeroes is 1,000 quadrillion.
It's not rocket science.
And if it weren't for the pesky Americans buggering up English in the 1930s when they wanted to have a word that was bigger than a million to so they didn't have to describe the Rockerfellers and others as mere "multi-millionaires," and the pathetic UK government deciding in the 1970s that we might as well follow the Americans instead of the Europeans (who invented the numbering system) we'd all know where we stand.
Even the US Department of Defence puts a disclaimer in its reports explaining that when they say "billion" they mean 1,000 million.
That, dear reader, is properly called a "milliard."
So, reclaim our language: the name for the number is 1,000 quadrillion.
End of story.
Download PDF version of this page
