Have you ever wondered how many zeros there are in a million, billion, trillion, or quadrillion? Today, most zeros get omitted in texts simply for the sake of easier readability. After all, some of those numbers can take up quite a bit of space.
So, if you’d like to get a better idea of how wealthy some people are, or if you are feeling nostalgic about the school days when you knew math much better than today, we’re sure you’ll enjoy this short article.
How Many Zeros Are in a Billion?
There are nine zeros in a billion, so in digits, it would be written like 1,000,000,000. You need to write the group of three zeros three times to get the number.
Similarly, there are six zeros in a million. Speaking of which, the answer to “1 billion = how many million” is one thousand million.
4 Interesting Facts About the Billion
Knowing the number of zeros can tell you it’s a big number, but how big? Here are some fun facts that will show you just how large this number is.
1. If you spent $20 every second, it would take you one year and 214 days to spend $1 billion.
(The Endowment for Human Development)
To put this in perspective, in 2021, Jeff Bezos made $2,537 per second. On the other hand, if you had one trillion dollars, it would last you until the end of your life — 1,585 years.
2. In the UK, a billion in digits referred to 1,000,000,000,000 until 1947.
(CommonsLibrary)
What Americans called a billion (1,000,000,000) was called a milliard in the UK. However, things changed in 1974 as the US version became more widely used, and what was considered a billion until then became a trillion afterward.
So, if you were confused about the difference between million, billion, and trillion, we hope this clarifies things.
3. It would take you 95.1 years to count to one billion.
(Berkeley.edu)
You could say small numbers like 6 or 44 pretty quickly, but once you get above one million, it might take you three seconds or more just to pronounce one number.
Even if you took no breaks at all, it would take you 3,000,000,000 seconds to finish pronouncing all the figures out loud until you get to those 10 digits in a billion.
4. A quadrillion seconds ago was about 32 million years ago.
(Britannica) (News18)
During this period, the world was in the Oligocene Epoch. What is interesting about this period is that there was a mass extinction event due to climate change, leading to about 63% of mammalian species disappearing.
You might be wondering — how many zeros are in a quadrillion? The answer is 15, so all of the above happened 1,000,000,000,000,000 seconds ago.
Conclusion
As you can see, one billion is quite a large number, though there are many numbers larger than that.
So, whether you dream of becoming a billionaire or simply want to know more about million, billion, trillion, and other larger numbers, we hope you’ve found this text both interesting and informative.
Since we know that there are nine zeros in a billion, adding one more zero would equal ten billion — 10,000,000,000. In the US, the title “trillionaire” would refer to somebody with a net worth of at least $1 trillion. If we consider that oil tycoons, with the highest expected lifetime earnings, reach “only” $626,220,000, it’s safe to say that there aren’t any trillionaires today. However, if you’re wondering how many zeros are in 1 trillion, the answer is 12. In the US, there are nine zeros in a billion. However, some European countries use what is known as the “long scale,” and according to it, the number billion has 12 zeros. The UK uses both scales, though the short scale has become more popular since 1974. So, the answer to —how many zeros are in a billion? — depends on where the person you’re asking lives.FAQs
What is a number with 10 zeros called?
How many zeros are in a trillionaire?
Are there 12 zeros in a billion?