Billions and Trillions

Having grown up with those diaries with unit tables that had a different number of zeros for a "billion" depending on which system one was using, I'm glad to finally have this clarified:

Source: BBC
Although there are still those who argue over the US and "former UK" definitions of figures such as a billion and trillion, according to Michael there is now basic agreement that a trillion is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million.

"When you hear a politician, business leader of economist using the word trillion, they are talking about a number with 12 zeros," he said.

So what does a trillion look like?

Then again you can illustrate the scale of this number by comparing the fact that a million seconds equals 11.5 days, a billion seconds is 32 years and a trillion is 32,000 years.

Or, if your brain has not exploded already, there is another calculation you can make, according to Michael.

"If you take the typical annual salary as £25,000 a year - how long would it take you to spend a trillion pounds if you spent £25,000 a day.

"The answer is 109,000 years."