https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=108.162.215.144&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T08:34:07ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2319:_Large_Number_Formats&diff=1933242319: Large Number Formats2020-06-13T02:29:48Z<p>108.162.215.144: Friday comic</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2319<br />
| date = June 12, 2020<br />
| title = Large Number Formats<br />
| image = large_number_formats.png<br />
| titletext = 10^13.4024: A person who has come back to numbers after a journey deep into some random theoretical field<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic shows how different people express large numbers.<br />
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'''25,259,974,097,204'''<br />
The first normal person writes out the number in its entirety, but puts commas to indicate powers of 1000.<br />
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'''25 trillion'''<br />
The second normal person says the number in English, but approximates it to 2 significant figures so it won't be too long.<br />
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'''25 billion'''<br />
In most English, an n-illion means 10^(3n+3), so a trillion means 10^12. However, in older British English, an n-illion means 10^(6n), so a billion means 10^12.<br />
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'''2.526*10^13'''<br />
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{| class="wikitable"<br />
|-<br />
! Number<br />
! Type of person<br />
! Notes<br />
|-<br />
| 25,259,974,097,204<br />
| Normal Person<br />
| This is the full number, written out in the normal fashion.<br />
|-<br />
| 25 Trillion<br />
| Normal Person<br />
| This is the number, rounded to trillions in the normal fashion.<br />
|-<br />
| 25 Billion<br />
| Old British Person<br />
| In current English usage, across the anglophonic world with some hold-outs, an n-illion means 10^(3n+3) as per the {{w|Short Scale}} system popularised by American influence in international trade, so a trillion means 10^12, as above. However, in older British English use had an n-illion meaning 10^(6n) (i.e. the simpler calculation of ''million^n''), so a billion meant 10^12. The change stems from a 1974 commitment by Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the UK at the time, to change from the {{w|Long Scale}} (previously often described as the British system) to the Short one for all official purposes.<br />
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Though not instantly widely adopted for common usage, the mid-'70s could therefore be considered the key turning point between when an older or younger British person learns (as the change filters through the system at various stages of education) what their "Billion"s and "Trillion"s are supposed to represent.<br />
<br />
(The 1971 transition to decimalised currency may also date a person's experiences, but was a more comprehensive and immediate change for everyone who handled any money at all, in the UK, and thus was a more definite point of change apart from the extended survival of the "12 times table" being taught by rote in primary education, rather than ending at the 10s.)<br />
<br />
As well as 'traditionalist' British use, the Long Scale is widely used in the non-anglophone world, in local language versions, though while the British system tended to infill n-and-a-half powers of the million with the term "thousand n-illion", the suffix "-illi''ard''", or equivalent, is often used for the thousands multiple directly atop the respective "-illion" point.<br />
|-<br />
| 2.5997x10<sup>13</sup><br />
| Scientist trying to avoid rounding up<br />
| Using as many decimal places as necessary until hitting a digit (0-4) that results in rounding down, even if it goes against the common scientific practice of reporting the correct amount of "significant figures". Although, in so doing they seem to have lost a couple digits.<br />
|-<br />
| 25,259,973,541,888<br />
| Software developer who forgot about floats<br />
| This is the number after being converted to the limited precision of a {{w|32-bit floating point|32-bit float}}.<br />
|-<br />
| 10<sup>13</sup><br />
| Astronomer<br />
| For extremely large distances, astronomers typically only care about orders of magnitude, i.e. 10<sup>13</sup>, not 10<sup>12</sup> or 10<sup>14</sup>. Randall often jokes about the lack of precision needed by astronomers, such as in that one xkcd (#2205) where the astronomer-cosmologist is equally willing to make pi equal to one, or ten. The original number is rounded to the nearest power of ten.<br />
|-<br />
| 1,262,998,704,860 score and four<br />
| Abraham Lincoln<br />
| In the {{W|Gettysburg Address}}, he speaks the number "87" as "four score and seven" ("score" meaning "20"). The original number is rewritten in "score" (multiples of 20) plus a remainder (four).<br />
|}<br />
Title text: It is uncommon in conventional mathematics to raise 10 (or any integer) to such an oddly precise power, or to see "serious" papers doing so. Instead, numbers are typically converted to one of the first 6-8 formats already discussed in the comic. This might be a nod to articles about fields such as statistics or number theory in which one deals with very large numbers, and then attempts to bring them back to the realm of "understandable" numbers (such as Isaac Asimov in the short non-fiction article "Skewered!" - google it).<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
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{{comic discussion}}</div>108.162.215.144https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1709:_Inflection&diff=123707Talk:1709: Inflection2016-07-20T18:13:12Z<p>108.162.215.144: </p>
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<div>Does anyone know what the emoticon part is trying to say?<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.170|108.162.215.170]] 16:59, 20 July 2016 (UTC)--<br />
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This comic was posted 3 days after the [http://worldemojiday.com/faq/ "World Emoji Day" (July 17)] created by Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge in 2014. The date July 17 appears in the calendar emoji used by Apple, but other tech companies use [http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/today-is-world-emoji-day/ different dates] in their version of this emoji. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.207|162.158.92.207]] 17:30, 20 July 2016 (UTC)<br />
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"Emojish" could be a good replacement for English which suffers from highly [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography nonphonemic orthography] and is a pain in the 🍑💨 to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti wright corecttly]. 😊 --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.207|162.158.92.207]] 17:57, 20 July 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I lost it at the end of the title text. My friend and I say wat to each other all the time. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.144|108.162.215.144]] 18:13, 20 July 2016 (UTC)</div>108.162.215.144