> Required XKCD reference: http://xkcd.com/558/
>
> To most people, "million", "billion" and "trillion" are almost
> interchangeable terms. Which is worrying, because those are /very
> different/ quantities. They're not even remotely similar. But it seems
> that when talking about large numbers, people get a kind of "numbness"
> where the quantities are so vast that they seemingly might as well be
> non-finite.
>
> But you know what? As far as I can tell, almost nobody mixes up a
> kilowatt and a megawatt. Nobody confuses centimetres with millimetres.
> No one has trouble with a gram and a kilogram being very different
> quantities. And when was the last time you saw somebody [who has a clue]
> mix up a gigabyte and a terabyte?
>
> So, perhaps what we need to do is start measuring money using SI
> prefixes. For surely 165 megadollars is clearly smaller than 170
> gigadollars.
>
> Sadly, I fear that for some, 20 millicents /will/ equal 20 millidollars.

It's even worst when you speak French. We have an additional step 
between million, billion, trillion...

million = 1000000 = 10^6
milliard = 1000000000 or 1000 millions = 10^9
billion = 1000000000000 or 1 millions millions = 10^12
billiard = 10^15
trillion = 1 million billions = 10^18
trilliard = 10^21
quatrillion = 1 millions trillions = 10^24
quatrilliard = 10^27
quintillion = 10^30
quintilliard = 10^33
...

Alain

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