Have you ever looked closely at how we name our numbers? For some reason I cannot stop thinking about it, not to say that I go every day just thinking about it constantly but it is something that I keep going back to. Here is an example of the problem I find with the conventional way we all know.
How many sides are in a triangle? how often can you expect a bi-monthly magazine? How many do you get when you quadruple something? These names all mean something do they not? So under our current numbering system which is known as the short system, everything is based on powers of a thousand. This means that one thousand (1,000) is the first power (1,000)^1, this now makes 'a million' the second power of a thousand (1,000,000) = (1,000)^2 which follows to 'a billion' to be the third power. Now hold on a second, remember when you got that bi-monthly magazine? one came in January and the other came in July did it not? Please do not go looking for it right now, this is a hypothetical situation. But according to this, now "bi" now means three and "tri" has been pushed to mean four. The next time you find that someone is bi-sexual it now makes you wonder how many other ways could they possibly swing.
Ok so since 1976 Europe uses the same numbering system as America. But before that they had a slightly different system which is called the Long System.. Now I'm sure that was not the name they used, 1975 and earlier due to the fact that this superior logical system was the one and only. Just like the short system it is based on the powers of an initial value except that value this time is one million. This means that one million (1,000,000) is the first power (1,000,000)^1 which makes one billion (1,000,000)^2. See now how that coincides? Bi now means two again and one trillion is written as 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 or (1,000,000)^3.
Now is the point where you will call me crazy, but I have constructed my own numbering system which I believe to be even more logical. This system uses powers of ten, which makes the exponent actually count the number of zeros.
Lets start with Ten (10).
10 Ten 10^1
100 Hundred 10^2
Now this is where we get a little different. The system I have constructed re-uses the previous names before we move to another name. So first we start with ten, and then because ten-ten would be crazy we move onto hundred. Then we re-use ten with the hundred to create ten-hundred. Now because hundred-hundred would be strange we move onto the next name Thousand. One thousand now would have four zeros as opposed to the usual three we are used to. There is logic to this, as we play this out we notice that we can figure out the amount of zeros a number has by its name as long as we know how many zeros each initial name has.
1 One 10^0
10 Ten 10^1
100 Hundred 10^2
10,00 Ten-Hundred 10^3
1,0000 thousand 10^4
10,0000 ten-thousand 10^5
100,0000 Hundred-thousand 10^6
10,00,0000 ten-hundred-thousand 10^7
1,00000000 Million 10^8
10,00000000 Ten-Million 10^9
100,00000000 Hundred-Million 10^10
10,00,00000000 ten-hundred-million 10^11
1,0000,00000000 thousand-Million 10^12
10,0000,00000000 ten-thousand-million 10^13
100,0000,00000000 hundred-thousand-million 10^14
10,00,0000,00000000 ten-hundred-thousand-million 10^15
1,0000000000000000 Billion 10^16
10,0000000000000000 ten-billion 10^17
100,0000000000000000 hundred-billion 10^18
10,00,0000000000000000 Ten-Hundred-billion 10^19
1,0000,0000000000000000 thousand-Billion 10^20
10,0000,0000000000000000 ten-thousand-billion 10^21
100,0000,0000000000000000 Hundred-thousand-Billion 10^22
10,00,0000,0000000000000000 ten-hundred-thousand-Billion 10^23
1,00000000,0000000000000000 Million-Billion 10^24
10,00000000,0000000000000000 Ten-million-billion 10^25
100,00000000,0000000000000000 Hundred-Million-billion 10^26
10,00,00000000,0000000000000000 ten-hundred-million-billion 10^27
1,0000,00000000,0000000000000000 thousand-million-billion 10^28
10,0000,00000000,0000000000000000 ten-thousand-million-billion 10^29
100,0000,00000000,0000000000000000 hundred-thousand-million-billion 10^30
10,00,0000,00000000,0000000000000000 ten-hundred-thousand-million-billion 10^31
1,00000000000000000000000000000000 Trillion 10^32
Calculation the number of zeros
ten hun thou mil bil tril quadril quintil
1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128
ten-thousand-billion-trillion
1 + 4 + 16 + 32
= 53 zeros
10,0000,0000000000000000,00000000000000000000000000000000
The beauty of this system is that we do not need to use so many different names for numbers clear up to numbers with one hundred and twenty placeholders unlike the short system which seems to be illogical and based upon memorizing names rather than using a system which can adapt to be scalable.
the only problems are how to pronounce the numbers,
12,34,5678,90345873
twelve hundred, thirty four thousand, fifty six hundred and seventy eight million, ninety hundred and thirty four thousand fifty eight hundred and seventy three.
What we notice is that the ten-hundred-thousand digits before we get to the million digits can also fit into the million digits recursively, so when we pronounce the digits within the million section we have to again break them down into tens hundreds and thousands. Simple as that!
Also the fact that million, billion and trillion and soforth again do not resemble their powers. To further confuse the numbering system, new names related to the powers will need to be thought up
As logical as this all works out to be I'm sure no one will want to adopt this crazily over complicated but highly logical numbering system. So for now I will be adopting the Long System with ease as I do not expect to pronounce numbers over ten-thousand.
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