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Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: 1,000,000,000 , i.e. one thousand million , or 10 9 (ten to the ninth power ), as defined on the short scale . This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of English; it has long been established in American English and has since become common in ...
English also has many words, such as "zillion", used informally to mean large but unspecified amounts; ... Thus, a billion is 1000 × 1000 2 = 10 9; ...
One billion years may be called an eon in astronomy or geology. Previously in British English (but not in American English), the word "billion" referred exclusively to a million millions (1,000,000,000,000). However, this is not common anymore, and the word has been used to mean one thousand million (1,000,000,000) for several decades. [4]
The observable universe spans an incredible 93 billion light years (approximately 8.8 × 10^26 meters) and hosts around 5 × 10^22 stars, organized into roughly 125 billion galaxies (as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope). As a rough estimate, there are about 10^80 atoms within the observable universe.
For most people, it's hard to imagine having even a million dollars, let a billion. However, fortunes totaling $1 billion -- and much, much more -- are a reality for the richest people in the...
Therefore, each of these words translates to the American English or post-1974 British English word: trillion (10 12 in the short scale), and not billion (10 9 in the short scale). On the other hand, the pre-1961 former French word billion , pre-1994 former Italian word bilione , Brazilian Portuguese word bilhão , and Welsh word biliwn all ...
Many people have no direct experience of manipulating numbers this large, and many non-American readers may interpret billion as 10 12 (even if they are young enough to have been taught otherwise at school); moreover, usage of the "long" billion is standard in some non-English-speaking countries. For these reasons, defining the word may be ...
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.