On 1/18/07, Ariel wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, Antonio Diaz Diaz wrote: > Hello Chris, > Sorry, but I am unable to see the "error in logic" here. > The Latin prefix "bi" means "two", so the most obvious meaning for "bi-llion" > is "a million millions (million^2). > The Latin prefix "tri" means "three", so the most obvious meaning for > "tri-llion" is a million million millions (million^3). > And so on. > > OTOH, I can't see why anybody would call "tri-llion" to a million millions > (million^2). Where is the three here? I don't see that is so obvious, you are just used to it. To me it's obvious that it's 1000*1000^whatever it's: 1000*1000^-1 one 1000*1000^0 thousand 1000*1000^1 million 1000*1000^2 billion 1000*1000^3 trillion 1000*1000^4 quadrillion vs: 1000000^0 one 1000000^.5 thousand 1000000^1 million 1000000^2 billion 1000000^3 trillion 1000000^4 quadrillion Your pattern breaks when it comes to thousand, so I think mine is more consistent and logical. Also your numbers grow too fast, and you needed to add milliard and billiard to compensate. (I suppose you could say thousand milliard and billiard are part of the same x.5 series, but really - two interleaving series is an improvement?) But seriously, different places give things different names, and there is no reason to go nuts about it, as long as I know what you are talking about, I don't care what you call it. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales for all the details. But, back to the subject at hand since we are talking about computers here, can't you just use K, M, G? Oh, and BTW, it's interesting that the SI units grow at the same rate the american ones. -Ariel
For a chart comparing American, European, and SI names, see http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/large.html I found other references, but this one is simple and presenting an an eye-pleasing table. -Jason _______________________________________________ Bug-ddrescue mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-ddrescue
