Scientists don't use words like million, billion, trillion because they mean different numbers in different countries. It's too early in the morning for me to work out the digits. Suffice to say, most European Languages use mill- to mean a thousand. But American english uses the term billion where the British term
milliard is otherwise used.
And I doubt anyone uses tetartillion, quintillion, and I might even be giving the wrong words here.
The article uses
sextillion, but face it, the journalist just liked the word.
But then there would be heptillion, octillion, nonillion, decaillion, undecaillion, dodecaillion, ... you all know the sequence. You. Yeah you, guy who played DnD, with the polyhedria dice, I'm talking to you.
[ July 25, 2003, 14:57: Message edited by: Arkcon ]