On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, Antonio Diaz Diaz wrote:
> Hello Chris,
> Sorry, but I am unable to see the "error in logic" here.
> The Latin prefix "bi" means "two", so the most obvious meaning for "bi-llion"
> is "a million millions (million^2).
> The Latin prefix "tri" means "three", so the most obvious meaning for
> "tri-llion" is a million million millions (million^3).
> And so on.
>
> OTOH, I can't see why anybody would call "tri-llion" to a million millions
> (million^2). Where is the three here?
I don't see that is so obvious, you are just used to it.
To me it's obvious that it's 1000*1000^whatever
it's:
1000*1000^-1 one
1000*1000^0 thousand
1000*1000^1 million
1000*1000^2 billion
1000*1000^3 trillion
1000*1000^4 quadrillion
vs:
1000000^0 one
1000000^.5 thousand
1000000^1 million
1000000^2 billion
1000000^3 trillion
1000000^4 quadrillion
Your pattern breaks when it comes to thousand, so I think mine is more
consistent and logical. Also your numbers grow too fast, and you needed to
add milliard and billiard to compensate. (I suppose you could say thousand
milliard and billiard are part of the same x.5 series, but really - two
interleaving series is an improvement?)
But seriously, different places give things different names, and there is
no reason to go nuts about it, as long as I know what you are talking
about, I don't care what you call it.
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales for all the details.
But, back to the subject at hand since we are talking about computers
here, can't you just use K, M, G?
Oh, and BTW, it's interesting that the SI units grow at the same rate the
american ones.
-Ariel