SEARCH HOME
Math CentralQuandaries & Queries

search

Question from mark, a student:

can you please tell me what one trillion divided by 10 is

Hi Mark,

Suppose you had $10 and you wanted to divide it equally among 10 of your friends. Each friend would get $1 since 10 × $1 = $10.

Suppose you had $100 and you wanted to divide it equally among 10 of your friends. Each friend would get $10 since 10 × $10 = $100.

Suppose you had $1,000 and you wanted to divide it equally among 10 of your friends. Each friend would get $100 since 10 × $100 = $1,000.

Suppose you had $1,000,000,000,000 and you wanted to divide it equally among 10 of your friends. How much would each friend get?

Penny

 

Mark,

Not till I know where you are writing from! In Britain a trillion means a million million million, 1 followed by 18 zeros. In North America it's a thousand thousand million, 1 followed by 12 zeros.

Dividing a number that ends in zero by 10 has the effect of removing one of the zeros: so 3000 / 10 = 300.

So a British trillion divided by ten is 1 followed by 17 zeros, which is a hundred thousand billion. In North America it would be 1 followed by 11 zeros. What would that be called? Fill in the next two lines and find out!

1 one
10 ten
100 one hundred
1 000 one thousand
10 000 ten thousand
100 000 one hundred thousand
1 000 000 one million
10 000 000 ten million
100 000 000 one hundred million
1 000 000 000 one billion
... ...
... ...

-RD

About Math Central
 

 


Math Central is supported by the University of Regina and The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.
Quandaries & Queries page Home page University of Regina PIMS