Apr 4, 2012
Billion
How much is a billion? Turns out that while a UK billion is theoretically a million million, or 1,000,000,000,000, since 1974 the UK government have been using the American billion, which is a thousand million, or 1,000,000,000. It's a lot less. It's also metric, saying as how metric systems do everything in thousands, so I don't know why the Americans had it first. What I learned today: a billion has nine zeros, not twelve.