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TFA specifies "more than 1,500 billion". That's more than a _trillion_, not "billions"! Why the reluctance to use the proper number?
by fellerts 2y ago
TFA specifies "more than 1,500 billion". That's more than a _trillion_, not "billions"! Why the reluctance to use the proper number?
- Rebelgecko 2y agoThe UK used a different definition of trillion until ~50 years ago (10^18 vs 10^12), so it probably helps avoid ambiguity
- qingcharles 2y agoAnd billion too, though. In the 80s the term was still confusing; no longer though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
- sammyoos 2y agoThe designation of trillion is ambiguous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion
- philomath_mn 2y agoSame for one billion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion I've never heard someone use the long scale, it is only ever mentioned as a novelty. I think the scientific community, at the very least, has standardized on the short scale.
- pxndxx 2y agoThe long scale is common in French, German and Spanish for example. English usually uses the short scale. The scientific community uses SI prefixes, which aren't part of either scale (you don't say a billion joules which is ambiguous, you either say a terajoule for a long-scale billion or a gigajoule for a short-scale one).
- piva00 2y agoAlso common in Swedish, miljon = 10^6, miljard = 10^9, biljon = 10^12, biljard = 10^15, triljon = 10^18.
- philomath_mn 2y agoFair enough, but I still would be surprised to see the long scale used in scientific communications written in English. Re SI Prefixes: you _could_ make the argument that they are essential another short scale since they are named every 3 orders of magnitude.
- hifromwork 2y agoMy country uses long scale. I've never seen long scale used in English, so I don't think it's ambiguous. But! When non-native speakers read news, they are not always completely fluent in English, or even aware the short scale exists. This is true even for journalists. I've seen articles written in a serious newspapers where a journalist confused "billion" and "trillion", because they incorrectly translated English "billion" to my language "bilion". Journalists! A cross-cultural mistake not unlike foots vs meters. So that's one thing to consider if one wants to avoid miscommunication at all cost. I'm not sure if it is important enough to take into account - after all people should know better.
- whimsicalism 2y agowhat? the scientific community absolutely also uses billion and trillion by short scale it’s all over papers and nobody is ever using the long scale that i’ve seen
- ivan_gammel 2y agoAre those papers in English? Long scale may be translated to short scale if the paper is translated from the original language where long scale is common.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
- rob74 2y agoThe long scale is far from just a novelty, most European countries other than the UK use it. Actually I thought it was used in all non-English-speaking countries, but Wikipedia showed me that the situation is far more complicated than I thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#/media/File:EScalas_corta_y_larga.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#/media/F... Besides short scale and long scale, there is a sizable "short scale with milliard instead of billion" fraction, and of course some countries (China, India, Japan, Greece) have completely different systems. Most interesting is that Portugal uses the long scale, while Brazil uses the short scale. That must be confusing...
- whimsicalism 2y agoalmost all scientific writing i can find from people in portugal uses the short scale. english formal communication has standardized around the short scale
- alenrozac 2y agoAll scientific writing in Slovenia uses long scale. I've heard it being used in EU institutions too.
- whimsicalism 2y ago> All scientific writing in Slovenia uses long scale. I've heard it being used in EU institutions too. I am able to easily find plenty of Slovenian academics using short scale in their scientific writing. Remember, English is standard for scientific writing and publishing in international journals. I have yet to find a single one using the long-scale, actually. https://link.aps.org/accepted/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.123540 https://link.aps.org/accepted/10.1103/PhysRevD.97.123540 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/abe6a7/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/abe6a7/... https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s40294-016-0017-8.pdf https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s40294-016-001... > observations by cataloging positions and redshifts of billions of galaxies in the next decade > and the configuration is stable over billions of years. > (networks having up to a billion of vertices; there is no limit—except the memory size—on the number of lines
- phkahler 2y ago>> Same for one billion: So that's how the US government will make the mult-trillion dollar debt go away. They'll just call it Billions.
- tzot 2y agoOTOH the phrase “a thousand million” for 10⁹ is not that uncommon. From what I've seen, in places where billions/trillions are mentioned and it's important that the number is accurately specified, a representation with digits or the exponent of 10 are typically provided.
- FabHK 2y agoAgreed that the short scale has become more prevalent, lamentably. I find 6n more pleasing than 3n+3.
- whimsicalism 2y agomy understanding is the long scale has largely died out think it is more than permissible to use what is scientifically standard (trillion = 10^12)
- tzot 2y ago“Scientifically standard” are the SI prefixes. So, given the ambiguity of what 1 gigastar is (1/1000th of 1 terastar or a really huge star?) one should say “10¹²s of stars” maybe.
- whimsicalism 2y agoYes, the SI prefixes are one example of something that is scientifically standard. The short scale is another.
- Tor3 2y agoDied out in English. Not in other languages where long scale was and is used, that hasn't changed at all. I'm not aware of any other language shifting from long scale to short scale (for languages traditionally using long scale).
- whimsicalism 2y agothink it is also dying out among many other languages like portuguese
- jl6 2y agoBillions is not wrong. Trillions (plural) would be wrong. "More than a trillion" would be needless words.
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- dylan604 2y agoA very famous person is very well known for his particular style of enunciating billions. After that, saying any other word is just a wasted chance of having Sagan's voice in their head reading the word.
- BurningFrog 2y agoA lot of people outside of HN don't know what a trillion is.
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- wrycoder 2y agoTell them it's comparable to $1 bills laid end to end from here to the sun. And tell them it's only 1/35 of the US national debt, which is roughly $350,000 per US taxpayer.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoEasy fix, just use $100 bills and we are only 35% of the way to sun. Problem solved.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dwaltrip 2y agoHow many Olympic swimming pools is that?
- withinboredom 2y agoIt’s several football fields full of cash.
- bregma 2y agoAmerican football or the more globally popular kind?
- withinboredom 2y agoWhich do you think? :p
- rurban 2y agoThe proper unit would be Parsec, imho
- seanhunter 2y agoParsec is a unit of distance[1]. They were counting a number of stars. [1] Defined as the distance at which 1AU subtends an angle of one arc second or 648000/pi AU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec
- rurban 2y agoOh, my bad. I thought they were talking about trillions of lightyears