Long scale
Long scale is the English translation of the French term échelle longue, which designates a system of numeric names in which the word billion means a million millions.
Short scale is the English translation of the French term échelle courte, which designates a system of numeric names in which the word billion means only a thousand millions.
Both systems have been used in France at various times in history.
For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Great Britain uniformly used the long scale, while the United States of America used the short scale, so the two systems were often (and accurately) referred to as "British" and "American" usage, respectively. However, as of 2004 most English-speaking countries have largely adopted the short scale, so the phrases "British usage" and "American usage" are now confusing.
As of 2004, "long scale" and "short scale" are not familiar terms in English, but they are easily understood and unambiguous. Therefore some BambooWeb articles that discuss numeric nomenclature, such as Billion and Names of large numbers, use the phrases "long scale" and "short scale" to refer to the two systems.
Comparison
| Value |
Long Scale |
Short Scale |
| |
Used in:
- all the world, except the Short Scale countries
|
Used predominantly in
- English-speaking countries (U.S., UK, etc.)
- Brazil
- Russia (109 is called milliard)
- Turkey (109 is called milliard)
- Greece
- Puerto Rico
|
| 103 |
thousand |
thousand |
| 106 |
million |
million |
| 109 |
thousand million or milliard |
billion |
| 1012 |
billion |
trillion |
| 1015 |
thousand billion or billiard |
quadrillion |
| 1018 |
trillion |
quintillion |
Alternative approaches
Given the conflicting usage of billion, trillion, etc. between the short scale countries on the one side and the remaining long scale world on the other, and also the remaining confusion within some parts of the English-speaking world, there is scope for misunderstanding when communicating across these boundaries. There are various alternative approaches possible to avoid the use of the term billion, trillion, etc. namely:
- use combinations of the unambiguous word 'million' wherever possible, for example: 109 = 1 thousand million; 1012 = 1 million million
- use powers of ten, for example 109, 1012
- use SI prefixes, for example, Giga for 109 and Tera for 1012, for physical quantities: 1 GW = 109 W; 1 TW = 1012 W. However, this is only feasible with quantities that commonly have such magnitudes. An additional problem is that if the quantity is a computing term, the term may be interpreted as being a power of 2 instead of a power of 10 (see Binary prefix for more information on one approach to avoiding this).
See also
