Why are there 12 zeros in a trillion in America and 18 in other countries?

Answer 1

Americans and other nations conceive of numbers larger than 999,999,999 differently. In the U.S., 1 followed by 9 zeros, or 1,000 million is called a billion, while most other countries refer to the same number as 1,000 million, or a "milliard".

Other nations have a more logical approach to naming numbers, concluding that bi- (or 2) indicates that one billion should have twice as many zeros as one million, and one trillion (tri meaning 3) should have three times as many zeros as one million.

While many people like to blame the difference on stubborn American individualism, the truth is, both systems of numbers were developed by French mathematicians. The French physician and mathematician Nicolas Chuquet created the name byllion as a textual representation of 1012 and tryllion as a representation of 1018 in the 15th century. French mathematicians of the 17th century used the same terms to refer to 109 and 1012, respectively.

Both France and Colonial America adopted the 17th century standard, while other countries continued using the older formula. In 1948, the French reverted to the European system, leaving the United States the sole user of what has become known as the American system.

The world scientific community uses the American standard.

Number of 0's.................U.S. Term...............Other countries'

000....................................thousand..................thousand

000,000.............................million......................million

000,000,000......................billion.......................milliard (or 1,000 million)

000,000,000,000...............trillion......................billion

15 0's................................quadrillion.................1,000 billion

18 0's................................quintillion..................trillion In the UK, the American billion is used now-a-days, i.e. 1,000million. In my young days in the 1950s, we had a billion as one million times a million. I don't know about the trillion in the UK, it's seldom that I need to think about such large numbers.