Subject:
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Re: Fw: Space Shuttle Costs
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Tue, 15 Dec 1998 21:07:39 GMT
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Reply-To:
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mattdm@/NoSpam/mattdm.org
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Viewed:
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1150 times
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Tom Rowton <lego-robotics@crynwr.com> wrote:
> Would someone please enlighten those of us who clearly do not understand the
> number system that the rest of the world uses, what the difference is
> between 5,000,000,000 and 5 Billion? Or is the US the only country that
> recognises "billion" as a valid number? How about trillion?
> I am seriously interested - this is not a thinly veiled jab. I would really
> like to know, so hold the flamethrowers and let the information flow.
Silly British people and their ilk ( <-- unveiled jab!) think that a billion
is not a thousand million, but rather a million million.
In my humble opinion, it makes much more sense to say:
10 ^3 = thosand
10 ^6 = million
10 ^9 = billion
10^12 = trillion
because it's way quicker and less confusing when one must say out lound
numbers like 1,002,003,004,005,006: one quadrillion two trillion three
billion four million five thousand six, rather than one thousand two billion
three thousand four million five thousand six. (And just think of the
confusion if I hadn't used all those 0s....).
Ok, sure, if we routinely had to deal with numbers on the order of 10^45, it
might be more economical to work in groups of six digits so we wouldn't need
to remember what a quattuordecillion is, but really, how often does that
come up?
Anyway, while I'm going on about this, I will point out that this convention
is French, not American. So blame them if you don't like it.
Ok, back to your regularly scheduled Lego.
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Fw: Space Shuttle Costs
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| In article <slrn77djsq.g1h.matt...a.bu.edu>, Matthew Miller <lugnet.robotics@lugnet.com> writes (...) Sorry chum, but you have only grasped half of the English way of saying the numbers. You missed out the essential "and". We would say, "one (...) (26 years ago, 16-Dec-98, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Fw: Space Shuttle Costs
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| Would someone please enlighten those of us who clearly do not understand the number system that the rest of the world uses, what the difference is between 5,000,000,000 and 5 Billion? Or is the US the only country that recognises "billion" as a (...) (26 years ago, 15-Dec-98, to lugnet.robotics)
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