Q: How many times larger is a trillion than a million? Would you say…
- One Thousand Times- 18%
- Ten Thousand Times- 12%
- One Hundred Thousand Times- 21%
- One Million Times- 21%
- Ten Million Times- 17%
- Don’t Know- 12%
Check out our new video: We went out in front of the White House and asked people a simple question, “How many millions are in a trillion?”
http://www.vimeo.com/4428480This report presents the findings of a telephone survey conducted among a national probability sample of 1,001 adults comprising 501 men and 500 women 18 years of age and older, living in private households in the continental United States. Interviewing for this CARAVAN® Survey was completed during the period April 23-26, 2009.
26 Comments
100,000 million in a trillion.
Darrell,
1,000 Million in a billion
100,000 million in 100 billion
Sorry, no. 100,000 * 1,000,000 = 100,000,000,000… One hundred billion, not one trillion. The answer is one million million.
this makes me sick
Darrell, seriously? Dumbass.
No. 1,000,000 million in a trillion. A trillion is a million million. Do the math.
Why haven’t you mentioned the differences between long and short scale? Technically both the first and fourth options are correct.
D’oh!
@Darell.
If 100,000 Million is a Trillion, how would you write 100 Billion as X Million?
1,000,000 – Million
1,000,000,000 – Billion
1,000,000,000,000 – Trillion
You know those 12% (and probably many of the other wrong answers) were confused that 3 wasn’t an option.
@Smartguy – I think you’ve got long and short scale switched around.
We use the short scale, where a billion = thousand millions, trillion = a million millions
The long scale is billion = million millions (million squared), trillion = billion millions (million cubed).
Since “a billion times” wasn’t an option, there ain’t no excuses for those 79%.
Darrell is right. 100,000 millions in a trillion. Learn some math, folks. Americans truly are stupid.
Seriously Joseph, before making such assertions, you need to check your math. One Trillion = 10^12 = (10^6)(10^6) = (1 million) x (1 million)… ie 1 million millions. Deuche!
Perhaps it’s just me but I see 2 questions being asked. The one everyone jumps on is how many millions are in a trillion. The other question is how many times larger is a trillion than a million. Each one has a unique answer which is why I think it’s confusing people.
Uh, Jim, it’s the really same question and the answer is the same. The confusion is because people aren’t really familiar with large numbers.
Jim, I don’t see the difference in the questions, or the answers at least.
How many 5’s are there in 10?
5 + 5 = 10
So 2 fives in a ten.
How many times bigger than 5 is 10?
5 * ? = 10
The answer again is 2.
5 * 2 = 5 + 5 = 10.
The same answer to both questions; as they are mathematically equivalent.
Unless you’re reading a third question into this that I’m not understanding the answer to both your questions are the same as well.
million = 1,000,000
trillion = 1,000,000,000,000
1,000,000 * 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000
I’m not going to add them out, but you’d add 1,000,000 a million times to do this with addition instead of multiplication.
I don’t see how these questions each have a unique answer.
Good point Jim; what exactly does larger mean? To me it means the difference, and so the definitive and clearly correct answer should be 999,999 on the short scale.
Not that it was offered as an option..
Touche. I was confused on the way it was being asked but I get it now. Can I at least point out that we should assume we’re talking about the US form of trillion, not the UK one?
I would like to point out that for many years, Brits and others referred to a million as 10^6 and a billion as 10^12. The US had no problem with the million but the billion was 10^9. As can be expected, this caused much confusion and dismay. Several years ago, I forget exactly when, but fairly recently, the UK agreed to go with the US definition. This whole ‘llion terminology should be scrapped and the standard prefixes used – milli, centi, deci, etc.
What’s that in crores?
I wish we had simple names for 2^n and 10^(2^n).
one million millions in one trillion
1000 millions in a billion
1000 billions in a trillion
1000 X 1000 = 1,000,000 millions in a trillion.
The Mad Ape
It depends on if you live at EE.UU. or not.
Oh for goodness sakes.
10^12/10^6=10^6
trillion in french is billion.
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!!
ok, good post.
3 Trackbacks
[...] http://econ4u.org/blog/index.php/2009/05…; [...]
[...] Poll: How many millions are in a trillion? (econ4u.org) [...]
[...] complaint is not entirely unjustified. A recent survey found that only 21 percent of Americans could correctly quantify one trillion (a million million). [...]