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When reading foreign documents have you ever felt confused or unsure what it meant by a billion or a trillion? A trillion in the U.S. is billion in many countries. As far as I know, the U.K. has switched to the American usage, but I remember the time when they used billion to mean a trillion. IMO it makes more sense to use billion for 12th powee of 10, a trillion for 18th power and so on.

OK, you've piqued my interest. As an american I learned:
hundred 10-0
thousand 10-3
million 10-6
billion 10-9
trillion 10-12
quadrillion 10-15
quintillion 10-18
sextillion 10-21
septillion 10-24
octillion 10-27
nonillion 10-30
decillion 10-33
google -a very big number 10-100 I think.
So how far am I off here by US numbers?
What are the differences in other number systems.

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Upto a million, there is no difference.
Billion=a million millions. 12 powers of ten
Trillion=a million billion. 18 powers of 10.
Quadrillion is 24 powers of 10.
Pentillion is 24 powers of 10.
Each subsequent xxxilion has power of ten increased by 6.
In other words, on a logarithmic scale to base 10, xxxillions form an arithmetic sequence: 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30.....
Whereas the American system will form the following sequence:
0, 6, 9, 12......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
Considering that I speak about 'billions' every week in English, German and French, I remain often confused and have to consider my audience and location.

You could easily raise our debt by a factor of a thousand for some of your audience.

Actually, google is a web search company. 10-100 is a googol.

And then a googolplex, which is 10-(googol)

In India and south Asia, you have Lakhs, which are 10-5, usually written as 1,00,000 and Crores, which are 10-7 or 100 lakhs. Then of course there's the lakh crore, which is 10-12, or the equivalent of one trillion. All I remember from trying to do the conversion was one lakh-crore Rupees was about US$20B.


(and while we're at it:
- kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, exa, zetta, yotta
- deci, centi. milli, micro, nano. pico, fempto, atta, zepto, yocto)

Why not ask Dr. Evil?

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It could be 10% less now. :D
For Powers of ten larger than the third power the name changes for every increase of two.
Lakh-1000, 3rd power of ten
Crore-5th
Arab or Arb- 7th
Kharb-9th
Padm, shankh, mahashankh.
I am not sure of the sequence after kharb. I find thousand crores or lakh crores condusing.

As most work that I do involves an international audience, for "1 000 000 000", I use "1000 million" and everything higher is written in scientific notation.

And what about Harpo, Gummo, Chico, Zeppo, and Groucho? :)

I'm am also often confused by the European system of using commas instead of decimal points. Is anyone else in the same boat as me?

The comma is the ISO standard for separating decimal points in blueprints. I don't see what's confusing about this:
1.000.000,00 is one million.
this should clear up your confusion

The original meaning of billion, established in the 15th century, was "a million of a million" (1,000,000 to the power of 2, hence the name billion), or 10 to the power of 12 = 1 000 000 000 000. This system, known in French as the "long scale", is currently used in most countries where English is not the primary language. In the late 17th century a change was made in the way of writing large numbers. Numbers had been separated into groups of six digits, but at this time the modern grouping of three digits came into use. As a result, a minority of Italian and French scientists began using the word "billion" to mean 10 to the power of 9 (one thousand million, or 1 000 000 000), and correspondingly redefined trillion etc. to mean powers of one thousand rather than one million. This is known in French as the "short scale" and is now officially used by all English-speaking countries, as well as Brazil, Puerto Rico, Russia, Turkey and Greece. Incidentally, the American billion is 1,000,000,000, rather than 100,000,000.

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Separating decimal points? :confuses
I think you fail to appreciate his point.
100,000 is one hundred thousand or simply one hundred? @:-)

That's right. And the worse part is that let's say an American is talking to a European or vice versa. Sometimes the speaker will follow the other person's convention to make life easier for him. But the other person doesn't know that. And both parties will end up confused.