RE: fossil plants come back to haunt us: pub contains big error

[mike@miketaylor.org.uk (Mike Taylor)]

Botterweg, Rrp writes:
 > (note: the English trillion is the French/German/Dutch billion, the
 > English billion is the French/German/Dutch milliard, very
 > confusing)

Is this really true?  I'd understood that the English billion = 10^12,
which is equal to the American trillion.  If the same number is also
known by yet another name (the milliard) in Europe, then we have a
pretty comical situation rife for misunderstanding.

That said, I think the "English billion" is dead.  It's a very long
while since I (an Englishman) saw the word billion used to mean
anything other than 10^9.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike@miketaylor.org.uk>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "I can't explain this.  I think it's obvious, though" -- MIT
         Algebraic Geometry professor, March 17, 2000.