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The long scale is common in French, German and Spanish for example. English usually uses the short scale. The scientific community uses SI prefixes, which aren'

by pxndxx 2y ago

The long scale is common in French, German and Spanish for example. English usually uses the short scale. The scientific community uses SI prefixes, which aren't part of either scale (you don't say a billion joules which is ambiguous, you either say a terajoule for a long-scale billion or a gigajoule for a short-scale one).

piva00 2y ago
Also common in Swedish, miljon = 10^6, miljard = 10^9, biljon = 10^12, biljard = 10^15, triljon = 10^18.
philomath_mn 2y ago
Fair enough, but I still would be surprised to see the long scale used in scientific communications written in English. Re SI Prefixes: you _could_ make the argument that they are essential another short scale since they are named every 3 orders of magnitude.
- hifromwork 2y ago
  My country uses long scale. I've never seen long scale used in English, so I don't think it's ambiguous. But! When non-native speakers read news, they are not always completely fluent in English, or even aware the short scale exists. This is true even for journalists. I've seen articles written in a serious newspapers where a journalist confused "billion" and "trillion", because they incorrectly translated English "billion" to my language "bilion". Journalists! A cross-cultural mistake not unlike foots vs meters. So that's one thing to consider if one wants to avoid miscommunication at all cost. I'm not sure if it is important enough to take into account - after all people should know better.
whimsicalism 2y ago
what? the scientific community absolutely also uses billion and trillion by short scale it’s all over papers and nobody is ever using the long scale that i’ve seen
- ivan_gammel 2y ago
  Are those papers in English? Long scale may be translated to short scale if the paper is translated from the original language where long scale is common.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    yes, i'm talking about the scientific community - papers are almost exclusively published in english or with an english version. long scale translated to short scale would be a mistranslation, imo

by pxndxx 2y ago

piva00 2y ago

Also common in Swedish, miljon = 10^6, miljard = 10^9, biljon = 10^12, biljard = 10^15, triljon = 10^18.

philomath_mn 2y ago

Fair enough, but I still would be surprised to see the long scale used in scientific communications written in English. Re SI Prefixes: you _could_ make the argument that they are essential another short scale since they are named every 3 orders of magnitude.

hifromwork 2y ago
My country uses long scale. I've never seen long scale used in English, so I don't think it's ambiguous. But! When non-native speakers read news, they are not always completely fluent in English, or even aware the short scale exists. This is true even for journalists. I've seen articles written in a serious newspapers where a journalist confused "billion" and "trillion", because they incorrectly translated English "billion" to my language "bilion". Journalists! A cross-cultural mistake not unlike foots vs meters. So that's one thing to consider if one wants to avoid miscommunication at all cost. I'm not sure if it is important enough to take into account - after all people should know better.

whimsicalism 2y ago

what? the scientific community absolutely also uses billion and trillion by short scale it’s all over papers and nobody is ever using the long scale that i’ve seen

ivan_gammel 2y ago
Are those papers in English? Long scale may be translated to short scale if the paper is translated from the original language where long scale is common.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  yes, i'm talking about the scientific community - papers are almost exclusively published in english or with an english version. long scale translated to short scale would be a mistranslation, imo