Depends on who you ask, but here are the commonly accepted standards: million: six zeroes billion: nine zeroes trillion: twelve zeroes quadrillion: fifteen zeroes quintillion: eighteen zeroes sextillion: twenty-one zeroes septillion: twenty-four zeroes octillion: twenty-seven zeroes novillion: thirty zeroes decillion: thirty-three zeroes undecillion: thirty-six zeroes duodecillion: thirty-nine zeroes tredecillion: forty-two zeroes quattuordecillion: forty-five zeroes quindecillion: forty-eight zeroes sexdecillion: fifty-one zeroes septendecillion: fifty-four zeroes octodecillion: fifty-seven zeroes novemdecillion: sixty zeroes vigintillion: sixty-three zeroes You may also be interested in the googol (one hundred zeroes) and the googolplex (one googol zeroes!). This Wikipedia page has the above plus some more information, including the difference between these accepted terms and the older British ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers Leezee: Nope, you misunderstand. A googol is a number which would be written as a one followed by one hundred zeroes. (A hundred, on the other hand, is a one followed by two zeroes.) A googolplex is not a one followed by those same hundred zeroes; it is a one followed by a googol zeroes. If that doesn't help, think of it this way: The number "ten" is expressed as a one, followed by one zero: 10. But a one followed by ten zeroes is way more than ten: 10000000000. (In fact, it's ten billion.) Googols and googolplexes work the same way--a googol is like the ten in that example, and a googolplex is like the ten billion. Please let me know if that clears it up.

ten million and ten billion

Let's see ... Paulson is a zero. That's one. Bernanke is a zero. That's two.

Leezee Dec, 27 2005 at 08:41 AM if a googol has 100 zeros and a googolplex has one googol (=100) zeros, isn't that the same thing??? No. not even close. A googol is a number with 100 zeros = 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 A googolplex has a googol of zeros = a 1 followed by a google of 0s = 1 followed by 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 zeros. Not 100 zeros

The definition of a million is 10^6 (1 with 6 zeros following it) from Latin: 'mille' = thousand & '-one' = greater version of. To get the word billion the word million is dissected incorrectly but that is how we have the word. The first two letters of million have been cut off and replaced by 'bi-' (twice). So a billion is in some way twice a million. We know that 2,000,000 is not a billion so what else is there to double - the power. So a billion is actually defined as 10^12. The French were the first to colloquially change this to 10^9 and then they changed back. However the damage was already done because this change occured during the 17th century (when the colonials of America were finding their feet). So the term billion instead of milliard for 10^9 stayed in the American language. America has now become the strongest country in the world so we adhere to their colloquialisms, unfortunately. So a trillion is actually defined as 10^18 ('tri-' = triple) and a quadrillion is 10^24 etc.

12-21-2016 http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html You just have to memorize this stuff, at least the ones you work with all the time. It's ok to bookmark the page so you can look up the others when you run across them. There is a prefix every three powers of ten, except for 100, 10, 1/10, and 1/100. To go from one to another you use the LARD rule: LEFT ADD RIGHT DEDUCT. When moving the decimal to the LEFT you ADD to the power of ten. When going to the RIGHT you DEDUCT from the power of ten.

A million has 6 zeros. A billion is a million times a million, therefore, logically speaking, it has 12 zeros. A trillion is a million times a million times a million, therefore, logically speaking, it has 18 zeros. A quadrillion is a million times a million times a million times a million, therefore, logically speaking, it has 24 zeros. And so on....