Talk:Million

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I added

1+1+1+1...+1+1=1,000,000 to the page and it crashed when I tried to save the revised version. Lir 09:06 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Contents 1 American vs. Short Scale 2 Prefix for a million 3 What number... 4 Million years 5 Millionth anniversary 6 Page move 7 Abbreviation 8 Proposed move 9 Selected Numbers

[edit] American vs. Short Scale

What's wrong with calling the short-scale "American"?? Every source off Wikipedia that I've seen that talks about the fact that it is different from the British scale refers to it as "American". 66.245.82.140 23:28, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Since when have the British used a different million from the Americans? The French call a million a million. There's little difference in the usage of million anywhere in the world. So why call it an American million? (billion, trillion may have different meanings - but not million) Ian Cairns 23:46, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The million is the same, but the larger number names are different. Every source I saw that talks about the 2 systems refers to them as "American" and "British", except Wikipedia, which uses "short scale" and "long scale". 66.32.242.106 23:56, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a distinction between Modern British (which is short scale - the same as your American, Brazilian, Russian, Turkish, etc.) and Traditional British (which is long scale and the same as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. i.e. Continental European countries). As of today, as far as the UK Government and the BBC websites are concerned, American and British usage are the same. Clearly, there is still some continuing Traditional British usage which differs from American usage. As a result, American vs British is not a well-defined criterion. American vs European doesn't work either - since the UK is part of Europe. The simplest way to express this is short scale vs long scale if you wish to contrast the systems. Saying that million is common to both American and Rowlett is to ignore the rest of the world, to which the term 'million' is also common. The Rowlett article uses the term 'American' throughout - which I suspect needs further discussion over there. Most other Wiki articles (e.g. billion, trillion,) are using / beginning to use short scale and long scale Ian Cairns 00:09, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I suspect the comment on 100,000 being refered to as a million in England and Spain is vandalism, certainly I've never heard of it as such in England. 82.45.53.159 19:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prefix for a million

The Greek numerical prefixes go up to 10,000 and the Latin numerical prefixes go up to 1000. How popular is it as of 2004 to ask what numerical prefix exists for a million?? According to Wikipedia, the proper Greek prefix would be hectamyria and Latin would be decicentimilli, both of which are very long. Is simply "million-" (as a prefix) okay?? 66.32.242.169 23:20, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

SI uses mega as a prefix for a million. Is there anything in your context that would prevent you using this? Ian Cairns 23:55, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Only as an SI prefix. I'm talking about as a general numerical prefix. "mega-" is Greek for big or great. 66.245.90.209 23:58, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My understanding is that neither the Greeks nor the Romans left us with a prefix for a million, which is probably why SI were left to look at the candidates and came up with Mega as an internationally-agreed numerical prefix for a million. (The prefixes are numerical, even though the SI quantities that are prefixed are physical). I can find no reference to hectamyria in Wikipedia - so Wikipedia doesn't even acknowledge the existence of this word, let alone suggest that this is the proper prefix. I think million is an abstract noun, and not a prefix. So, you have no internationally-recognised numerical prefix for a million (apart from SI's Mega-). What is your context? A 1 million-sided polygon or similar? I read in polygon that mathematicians would use 1,000,000-gon Ian Cairns 00:37, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] What number...

There is a magic number. Smaller numbers can be read in 3 different ways, Greek, Latin, and English. Larger numbers can be read in 3 different ways, short scale, long scale, and Rowlett. But this magic number can be read in only one way, unlike either kind, excluding relations to other numbers, such as a hundred is ten squared. Can anyone name this magic number?? (Any other way it is sometimes read, excluding relations to smaller numbers??) 66.245.82.61 01:13, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Million years

A decade is 10 years. A century is 100 years. A millennium is 1000 years. Something that can be abbreviated Ga is 1,000,000,000 years. Anyone know the name of a period of 1,000,000 years?? Georgia guy 20:00, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

1,000,000 years would be represented by Ma. [[1]] Xander848 03:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Millionth anniversary

We know that no millionth anniversary of any exact event is known (the time was prehistoric, the days of the mammoths and mastodons.) But what if someone wants to know how to name a millionth anniversary. What term would it be?? Georgia guy 13:31, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

I I undid the cut&paste move of this page to 1000000. Per conventions, articles like 100000, etc, are about years, not numbers. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)shut UP!

I think million is a much better title for this article than 1000000 (number). —Keenan Pepper 00:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

The issue was already put to a vote a long time ago, and the majority decided on [[N (number)|N]]. PrimeFan 19:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

In this case, the number has an established, easily recognized name. It looks sort of ridiculous to call a million 1000000 (number), calling things by their refined name is civilized. Besides, most of the interwiki's (German, Dutch, etc.) use the name million. If the 'vote' is the only factor preventing the logical move, then let's revote. - GilliamJF 04:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I haven't looked up the old vote or the arguments, but we have articles 1 (number), 666 (number), etc., so why not 1000000 (number)? I admit Googol is better than e.g. 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 (number); the question is where to draw the line. We have up to 1000000000 (number) (i.e. 10⁹); the next one (10¹⁰, 10000000000 (number)) redirects to Orders of magnitude (numbers). I think 1000000 is fine where it is; 1000000000 may be overdoing it a bit.--Niels Ø 10:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abbreviation

How is one million abbreviated? mill. or something? --Shandris 16:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I actually just came to this article trying to answer this question. I'm given to believe it's "MM" in some contexts, e.g. (I think) money: $10,000,000 as $10MM, but not sure what else. I'm curious whether that's a universal abbreviation, or domain-specific. AndyBoyko 04:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting... thanks for the reply =). Well, it's because here in Sweden we abbreviate it as milj., I was wondering if there is an English equivalent --Shandris 08:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that "MM" is common. In newspaper headlines, I believe I've seen "m". In some contexts, the metric prefix "M" can be used.

[edit] Proposed move

[edit] Selected Numbers

Do we really need the selected 7-digit numbers? They seem irrelevant. 67.188.172.165 04:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)