Billion

In mathematics, a billion is an enormous number written as 1 followed by 9 zeros or 1,000,000,000. It is also referred to as a thousand million, since it is equal to 1000 × 1,000,000. The prefix “giga” in the term “gigameter” represents ‘billion’, and one gigameter is one billion meters. We can represent a billion in two different notations: the short scale and the long scale. In the short scale, commonly used in the United States, a billion is represented as 109, or 1,000,000,000, which is 1 followed by 9 zeros. In the long scale, used in France and Germany, a billion is represented as 1012 or 1,000,000,000,000, which is 1 followed by 12 zeros.