by Ann » Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:48 am
Chris Peterson wrote:Ann wrote:I know "billion" is tricky, but I was speaking English. In Swedish, a "biljon" is a trillion - that is, a "biljon" is 1,000,000,000,000. So what is a billion called in Swedish, then? It's a "miljard". A "miljon" is really a million.
A "billion" is pretty unambiguously 10^9 in any scientific discussion. The fact that some countries are still using a different, confusing, obsolete, and illogical set of terminology should not impact a discussion in a technical forum. You're not going to find milliards in scientific papers.
Right. I know, Chris. And an important reason why milliards are missing in scientific papers is that English doesn't use milliards, and English is the lingua franca of the community of science of today.
Carl von Linné, Swedish biologist who classified very many species of the flora and fauna in the 18th century, gave us all Latin designations, because Latin was the language of science back then. And that's why we are called Homo Sapiens and not Intelligent Human. (Or even Klok Människa.)
Ann
[quote="Chris Peterson"][quote="Ann"]I know "billion" is tricky, but I was speaking English. In Swedish, a "biljon" is a trillion - that is, a "biljon" is 1,000,000,000,000. So what is a billion called in Swedish, then? It's a "miljard". A "miljon" is really a million. [/quote]
A "billion" is pretty unambiguously 10^9 in any scientific discussion. The fact that some countries are still using a different, confusing, obsolete, and illogical set of terminology should not impact a discussion in a technical forum. You're not going to find milliards in scientific papers.[/quote]
Right. I know, Chris. And an important reason why milliards are missing in scientific papers is that English doesn't use milliards, and English is the lingua franca of the community of science of today.
Carl von Linné, Swedish biologist who classified very many species of the flora and fauna in the 18th century, gave us all Latin designations, because Latin was the language of science back then. And that's why we are called Homo Sapiens and not Intelligent Human. (Or even Klok Människa.)
Ann