A billion almost defies comprehension

Q: In America, a billion has 9 zeros (1,000,000,000). Why does this word contain a "bi" (indicating two), when there are three triplets of zeroes? And why does a billion have 12 zeroes (1,000,000,000,000) in Britain?

A: The aborigine of Australia count: "One, two, many..." A billion almost defies comprehension.

How large is an American billion? Sure, you can write down a '1' and follow it with 9 zeros but what does that mean? Can you imagine how big that number is?

Suppose you start counting NOW (One, two...) and name a number every second without stopping. You will say "one billion" about 32 years later.

A conventional British billion is a thousand times bigger than an American billion. Thirty-two thousand years to reach "one (British) billion", counting at one number per second.

You get the idea: a billion is such a large number it does not matter which definition you use, American or British. Either way, it is difficult to imagine and discover its meaning. According to Harold Jacobs (author of Mathematics, a Human Endeavor), that is why the Americans and the British came up with two versions. Until recently, we had no need for such a big number. So we have not agreed how to name it.

A "billion" is a relatively new word. The word, billion, was not in common use even as late as the 16th century. It comes from the Italian and is first found as bimillion, bilioni, and byllion. It originally meant a million million, and in England and Germany it still does. That is the meaning of the prefix bi: two "million" written side by side and meaning a million million.

"If you want to be a billionaire," advices William Morris, author of Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, "stay right here in America." It's a thousand times easier.

However, "the 'American' system is now standard use in British government publications, and is becoming the norm in many other languages," reports AskOxford.com of Oxford Dictionaries. In fact, British primeminister Harold Wilson, in 1974, told the House of Commons that from then on UK government statistics would use the 'short scale' (i.e., American) system.

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(Answered August 1999, Updated Nov. 13, 2007)