trillion
Sign in to savealt=vizualisation of 1 Trillion|thumb|Visualization of 1 trillion (short scale) alt=A partially turned Rubik's cube|thumb|A Rubik's Cube, which has about 43 trillion (long scale) possible positions Trillion is a number with two distinct definitions: 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the meaning in both American and British English. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, i.e. (ten to the eighteenth power), as defined on the long scale. This is one million times larger than the short scale trillion. This is the historical m
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4 sectionsContents
- Usage
- Etymology
- See also
- References
alt=vizualisation of 1 Trillion|thumb|Visualization of 1 trillion (short scale) alt=A partially turned Rubik's cube|thumb|A Rubik's Cube, which has about 43 trillion (long scale) possible positions Trillion is a number with two distinct definitions: 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the meaning in both American and British English. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, i.e. (ten to the eighteenth power), as defined on the long scale. This is one million times larger than the short scale trillion. This is the historical meaning in English and the current use in many non-English-speaking countries where trillion and billion (ten to the twelfth power) maintain their long scale definitions.
== Usage == Originally, the United Kingdom used the long scale trillion. However, since 1974, official UK statistics have used the short scale. Since the 1950s, the short scale has been increasingly used in technical writing and journalism, although the long scale definition still has some limited usage.