9 May
2010
9 May
'10
1:03 p.m.
On 9 May 2010 at 14:42, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Andrew Burton wrote:
If you're talking about the long scale vs. short scale debate, it has
nothing to do with being misinformed. It has more to do with
"C-O-L-O-R" vs. "C-O-L-O-U-R".
"Thousand million" is a good disambiguator that seems to be
comprehesible on either side of the pond. At Wolfram Mathword, under
the term "milliard":
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Milliard.html
"In French and German usage, one milliard equals 10^9=1000000000.
American usage does not have a number called the milliard, instead
using the term billion to denote 10^9. British usage, while formerly
using "milliard," has in recent years adopted the American convention
(Mish 2003, p. 852). This constitutes a fortunate development for
standardization of terminology, albeit a somewhat regrettable
development from the point of view that the (former) British
convention for representing large numbers is simpler and more logical
than the American one.
A terrible mathematical joke asks "What American President, with
cities in California and Utah named after him, is associated in
France and Germany with 10^9?" Answer: Milliard Fillmore (J. vos
Post, pers. comm., Apr. 27, 2006). "
--Chuck
Do you
really think that we can successfully correct the meaning of
"hackers"?
About as much chance as correcting the modern mis-informed erm...
non-geeks about the terms billion and trillion.