> > In North America, the word we use to describe a quantity equivalent to a thousand million is one "billion". In the U.K., I've been told -- i.e. so I've heard -- that a "billion" means something else. It could mean something general, more random and less exact, such as a million million. Similar to the way I might describe an impossibly huge number as "eleventy-thirty bajillion."

Well, it's precisely as random and inexact as a US trillion.

> It used to be thus:
>
> In the US, the way to go up the ranks, as it were, was to multiply by 1,000. Thus, one million = 1,000 x One thousand. One Billion = 1,000 x One Million and so on...
>
> In the UK, it was the case to square the previous amount. One million = One thousand x One thousand. One billion = One million x One million and so on...

Not quite. Each -illion number is one million times the size of the last.

> It is coincidence that the million amounts were the same.

Again, not quite. The US system was based on the British system, but because such large numbers were rarely used, it was quite an easy drift. One Million was presumably well enough understood that it remained the same when the others changed.

> It has since been realised that the US way was a better way of doing things as you got more realistic amounts and eliminated the need for amounts like "Thousand Billion" and "Million Trillion."

Once again: Neither system is any better than the other, but because Americans have cause to use such large numbers more often, the British system was quietly dropped to avoid ambiguity.

The US system has a slightly simpler nonclemeture system, but other than that, there is no difference.

A "Thousand Billion" would be a "Billiard". A "Million Trillion" would be a "Quadrillion".

Without having ever practiced the skill, I find the British form exactly as easy to use as the US system.

> At least in newspaper terms this has been adopted, but I don't know if the scientific community has taken it up yet.

I would expect the scientific community to use notation like 10^12, rather than actual words. Not that I know that for certain, mind.

winter"Sorry. I couldn't let such egregious errors stand"mute