[meteorite-list] Fw: term definitions and usage

From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:40:03 -0400
Message-ID: <8CE1932EDA37526-2210-36A0_at_Webmail-d107.sysops.aol.com>

Michael,Andre, and Leo

A"billion" in Mexico is even scarier than the two versions in the
USAand Europe. Like Leo says, from Spain, 10^9 is "a thousand
million"is common, but the proximity to the US and
overflow/translations of news havemade it a big mess in meaning - at
least in the northeast and"billion" for 10^9 is often used, erroneous
or not, and I must admitto never hearing anyone use a billion for
10^12, but it must be.

Thatwas a very complete website link on big numbers, Andre, thanks.

Randy,

Perfectfollow-up - as corny as I may sound, may I add that
your/his"nano-gigaannum" joke is "timeless" ;-) Must have been fun to
watch as a young entrant (and think ... I'm never going to turn into
that...)? I still use mya,habits are hard to break when they seem to
flow so easily, like writing"I'm" instead of "I am".

Everyone/

Iwon't forget my extended trip to Pakistan some time ago. Over there
and inIndia, when speaking of the value of a house, for example, the
base big unit isa lakh (rupee). It is 100,000. Took a little adjustment
since everything inEurope and the Americas is based on triplets of
zeros. I was all giddy feelinglike Johnny Quest as soon as I mastered
the concept of lakh and used it everychance I got...

Thetrivial name differences between the long and short
European/American systemmight be humorous to some of them, everyone is
always finds some cultural thingto defend for the preservation of life
and liberty (similar to Randy's account).Just three years ago at a
major star party I was discussing my meteorites withsomeone in the chow
line and one of the (few) women flipped out when she heardme speak of
grams, "This is America, speak American - we use ounceshere!" I was
admonished very sharply. I was hungry so the answer was 'yes,ma'am',
but dinner didn't taste so good as it should have for some sad
reason... something to do with being at a gathering of fellow
astronomers...

Correctme if I'm wrong, but are big Chinese numbers are based on
[10^4]^i.

Kindestwishes

Doug
(This is a resend since a lightening strike resent my email to RTF and
this post in its original form didn't go through to the general list)

?

?




-----Original Message-----
From: Randy Korotev <korotev at wustl.edu>
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Mon, Jul 25, 2011 11:52 am
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: term definitions and usage


I attended my first scientific conference as a graduate student
sometime in the early 70's. My first exposure to lunar geochronology
was a session I attended at that conference. I was surprised to learn
that the community of isotope geochronologists was very contentious to
the point of being insulting and rude. After nearly every talk
somebody got up and asked a pointed question or made a damning comment.?
?
After one talk someone in the audience got up and chastised the speaker
for having presented all his age data with the units "byr." The
chastiser was very adamant that "billion years" was an obsolete and a
just-plain-wrong term, in part because the word billion means a
different things in America and Britain. "The proper term is Ga for
gigaannum (you idiot)!"?
?
The next speaker got up and started his talk like this: "A nano
gigaannum ago at this conference we presented some data..." It took
almost until the end of the sentence for the audience to appreciate the
joke and erupt into laughter.?
?
Randy Korotev ?
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Received on Mon 25 Jul 2011 06:40:03 PM PDT