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Naming numbers


fafalone

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I was appalled by the nomenclature on a recent Slashdot article, so I thought I'd make it clear so I don't have to see it here:

 

DO NOT WRITE NUMBERS LIKE "ONE MILLION TRILLION TRILLION".

 

These numbers make you sound like a moron. Call huge numbers by their REAL NAME. It's like little kiddies who don't know the proper names for things. NO

 

After a trillion comes a quadrillion, NOT a "thousand trillion" or "ten thousand million" or any other asinine name.

 

BILLION

TRILLION

QUADRILLION

QUINTILLION

SEXTILLION

SEPTILLION

OCTILLION

NONILLION

DECILLION

UNDECILLION

DUODECILLIN

TREDECILLON

QUATTORODECILLION

 

..and so forth. If you need to name a larger number, consult Google or me (I have a program that can name ANY number (ulimit = whatever can fit in a standard STRING variable), but don't post some asinine combination of those, or you'll get warned.

 

Same for anyone caught naming numbers with "milliard" "billiard" and whatever else they use other places.

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iglak said in post # :

umm... Billion = 10^9 (as i am sure you meant to say)

Trillion = 10^12

etc... again

 

P.S. feel free to edit Mrl's and delete this if you want

 

Nope. Billion = 10^12.

 

You're using the american system, which is an idiotic way of doing things. In that, the 'llion' part refers to 'Each time you multiply by 1,000, and then multiply by 1,000 one more time'; 'Each time you multiply by 10^6' is somewhat simpler, and makes more sense.

 

'1. The cardinal number equal to 10^9.

2. Chiefly British. The cardinal number equal to 10^12.'

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Werd.. I've gonnen confused.

 

So one milliard is equal to 10^9 or one trilliard minus 10^6?

 

But if you are really good at billiards you could use 10^-3 * ten million billion quadrilliards? Or is that wrong?

 

In other words, could you post the british number wording system please? The *illiards are unfamilliar to me.

 

And when exactly did it change over, since we all came from the Merry Old ever so long ago. (Well many of us in North America anyways.)

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for each 0 you add at the end (least significant Bit) you effectively double the number. preceeding (leading) zeros are ignored but used anyway for maths and electronic purposes.

I agree though, Binary`s a great system! it`s the only one I know of that will allow me to count up to 31 on one hand :)

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Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

Or Trinary, or Quadrinary, or whatever you call it.

But when people say "billion trillion" I just think "bajillion." It's simpler.

but a billion trillion is a LOT of whatever, while bajillion is like: WHOA! that's a LOT!!... i think.

 

so... considering RNA (and DNA) is basically quatrinary, with 3 bit long bytes, i vote for quatrinary ;) (but then you can only count to 11 on one hand, much lower that 31 :-( )

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