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


In my experience, no scientist has ever needed to count money in larger units than "million". After that, the accountants and politicians take over ;)

There's this joke where I can never remember the exact scale, but it goes something like this:

"A billion (1000000000) years ago the earth was created.
A billion days ago life came on to land.
A billion hours ago man came down from the trees.
A billion minutes ago Jesus died.
A billion seconds ago was 1970.
A billion dollars is yesterday in Washington."

julian