Conference thebay::joyoflex

    "A" and "B" are easy:
    
    
    
    The smallest whole number that contains the letter "A" is:
    
    	One thousand.
            
    The smallest whole number that contains the letter "B" is:
    
        One Billion.
    
    "C"  -- One Octillion? 
            
    					andrew

        A :        One hundred and one
        B :        One billion
        C :
        D :        One hundred
        E :        Zero
        F :        Four
        G :        Eight (or do we allow nought ?)
        H :        Three (or do we allow nought ?)
        I :        Five (or do we allow nil ?)
        J :
        K :
        L :        Eleven (or do we allow nil ?)
        M :        One million
        N :        One (or do we allow nil/nought ?)
        O :        Zero
        P :
        Q :
        R :        Zero
        S :        Six
        T :        Two (or do we allow nought ?)
        U :        Four (or do we allow nought ?)
        V :        Five
        W :        Twelve
        X :
        Y :        Twenty
        Z :        Zero

    My eighth grade math teacher pounded into us that the correct way
    of stating, for example, 101, is "one hundred one", not "one hundred
    and one".  If that's true, then I guess the smallest number containing
    "a" is one quadrillion.
    
    Clay

    X: Six

>     My eighth grade math teacher pounded into us that the correct way
>     of stating, for example, 101, is "one hundred one", not "one hundred
>     and one".  If that's true, then I guess the smallest number containing
>     "a" is one quadrillion.
    
        In which case, what the heck is a 'quadrillion' ?  I suspect if I
        asked any maths teacher I've ever had, they'd say "No such number".
        [I bet they'd also say that 'one hundred and one' was the correct
         way to say it, not 'one hundred one', but then again, I'm English :-]

    A quadrillion is a thousand trillion, or 10**15.  It's in my
    Digital-issue American Heritage dictionary.
    
    Clay

    "Thousand" is less than a "quadrillion"; so, in a fair answer, "one
    thousand" wins.  However, an unfair answer might be "two halves,"
    whicvh is equal to the integer "one."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    	Not current English usage maybe, but there were "four and twenty"
    blackbirds baked in a nursery rhyme.

  One very small number spelled with an "A" is a quadrillionth.  The smallest
  integer spelled with an "A" is ten (hexadecimal).

  JP

    re: .8
    
    How could I have missed one thousind?   :^)
    
    Clay

  Sorry about the first part of .10, Eric -- you did say whole number.

  JP

I go with those that say "one hundred one", not "one hundred _and_ one" My
grammar school teachers were very insistent about it. When pressed, one of
them said it was important on the second line of a personal check. You know
where you are supposed to write the amount out in longhand. "And" is the word
that differentiates the dollars from the cents. As in: 

        One hundred one and 98/hundreths... dollars
                        ^^^
                Mike

>                  ........ on the second line of a personal check. You know
>where you are supposed to write the amount out in longhand. "And" is the word
>that differentiates the dollars from the cents. As in: 

>        One hundred one and 98/hundreths... dollars
                        ^^^

I think we are divided by our common language on this point. On an English
personal CHEQUE the ammount would be written as:

	One hundred and one pounds and 98p



Smallest number with the letter C:

	Score	20
	
		Steve

    I would _say_ 101 as ,  "a hundred and one" .
                 
    I would _write_ 101 as "one hundred and one"

    John J
    

        Also as regards the "common language" thing, I think few people
        in Britain would have any idea what a quadrillion was, or a
        trillion or a zillion or much else along those lines.  The only
        ones I *know* are recognised are :

                million  =  1,000,000
            and billion  =  1,000,000,000,000 (or a million million)

        As everyday mortals like myself rarely have need for numbers that
        large, we leave it to the scientists and their "10 to the power of ..."

If we allow the words:

	Pair,
	Brace
or	Couple

As meaning two, then that takes care of the letters P and C. (Ah, but then
you might accept Ace for one which gives an even lower value for C).

Then there's a "Bakers dozen" - 13, takes care of K.

J and Q. Nope, have to rely on our inventive American cousins to come up
with new words for powers of ten for them.

	Steve	:-)

    Smallest with A in it: half a score (actually heard; Norfolk farmer
    referring to ten pigs).
    
    b

    Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by smallest: but in
    the "greater than or less than" sense, I'm surprised no one has
    suggested, for several letters -
    
    minus infinity ! 
    
    OK, stop groaning, and tell me how to symbolise a groaning face
    in a notes file :-)
    
    Reluctant drawers of cheques in the UK, pre - decimalisation, have
    been known to write, for example:
    
    One Hundred and one pounds, four shillings and sixpence only

    or, when even more annoyed about parting with the loot:
    
    One Hundred and one pounds, four shillings and sixpence, and not
    a penny more!
    
    The "only" is still used by many.
    
    -- brian

    Edna Everage has been heard to refer to herself as a squillionaire,
    so it's not just the Americans who are inventive with numbers.
    
    (I've just been told that programmers often have trouble
    differentiating between Christamas and Halloween, as Dec 25 is the
    same as Oct 31 [Ugh!])
    
    Phillip

    Well if we use Latin we can get 'q'....the roots quad- and quint-
    are four and five. (I can't remember the actual words :-(

    Bonnie

     Re: .6, .7 

     According to my dictionary, a British quadrillion is equal to one    
     billion (British) billions (1 x 10**24.  That is equivalent to an 
     American _septillion_.

     I never could figure out why the British equate a _billion_ to a
     million millions, while the U.S. _billion_ is equal to one thousand
     millions.  It seems to me that once you have 999 of something, its time
     to call it something else.  :^}  This, therefore leads us to a 
     convenient system of numbers for defining quantities which we are
     likely to encounter in our everyday activites:

                                            U.S.              British

                                 1,000 - Thousand      Thousand.
                             1,000,000 - Million       Million.
                         1,000,000,000 - Billion       One thousand million.
                     1,000,000,000,000 - Trillion      Billion.
                 1,000,000,000,000,000 - Quadrillion   One thousand billion.
             1,000,000,000,000,000,000 - Quintillion   One million billion.
         1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - Sextillion    One thousand 
                                                             million billion.
     1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - Septillion    One quadrillion. 


     Now let's try it with some fill-in's:

     1,234,567,890,123,456,789,012,345 (U.S.) - One septillion, two hundred
     thirty-four sextillion, five hundred sixty-seven quintillion, eight 
     hundred ninety quadrillion, one hundred twenty-three trillion, four 
     hundred fifty-six billion, seven hundred eighty-nine million, twelve 
     thousand, three hundred forty-five.
               
     (British) - One quadrillion, two hundred thirty-four thousand five
     hundred sixty-seven million billion, eight hundred ninety thousand one
     hundred twenty-three billion, four hundred fifty-six thousand seven
     hundred eighty-nine million, twelve thousand three hundred forty-five.


     Alas, to each his own!  :^)

    the square root of one plus zero cubed times sixty-five take away eight
    
    no "j" yet.

    Re .23:
    
    Other than the fact the note specified positive integers, what's
    so special about -7?
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

Then there's the number

	beellion

How large is this ?  I suppose we ought to ask Carl Sagan.  He often speaks
of

	"beelions and beelions of stars..."

/Eric

    Re .24:
    
>>    Other than the fact the note specified positive integers, what's
>>    so special about -7?
    
    Nothing special.  I was just trying to use all of the letters
    for one "number."  I finally found one with a "j" in it:
    
                   just a little over a hundred
    
    Dan
    
    P.S.  I would argue that .0 permitted zero as well.

      What number do Brits call a trillion?   
      
      If a quadrillion is a billion billions, is a trillion a million
      billions?
      
      Dave C.

    re .22, .27:
    
    Yes, a trillion _is_ a million billions. The logic (such as there
    may be) behind the British system, according to my dictionary, is
    that the prefixes bi, tri, and quad, are used to qualify "million",
    hence billion = 1000000^2, trillion = 1000000^3, quadrillion =
    1000000^4. The dictionary stops there - it doesnt list quintillion.
    
    So the American system would seem to use the prefixes to qualify
    "thousand", in the sense that billion = 1000^(2+1), trillion =
    1000^(3+1) and so on. Ideally, to my mind, and American billion
    should be 1000^2, a trillion, 1000^3, etc. But then "bithousand"
    (or variations thereon) are not exactly euphonious.
    
    But then we live in an imperfect world, and from a practical point
    of view, a system based on powers of 1000 _is_ the more convenient.
    
    --- brian

    	I like the +1 bit in the explanation of the american system.
    Now maybe that is why they have problems with floors of buildings.

    So, Brits, how many people are there in the world?  Let's say it's
5,000,000,000.  I've always called that number "5 billion".  How 'bout you?

Jon

    Well, I have to be honest with you folks, in spite of what the
    dictionaries say. Over the past 25 years, the actual _use_ of "billion"
    in the UK seems to have changed, gradually, to the American way.
    World population and government spending tend to be quoted in
    "billions" now on Radio and TV, so unless Mrs. Thatcher is _really_
    ripping me off, I'll have to believe 1 billion = 10^9. Yet another
    capitulation of English values to US ones !   :-(

    I wonder: does Italian government spending have to be quoted
    in (American) Trillions of lire?
    
    -- brian

        I would say 5,000,000,000 is "five thousand million".  Add three
        more noughts (and another optional comma) to make it 5 billion

        or alternatively, speak to an American.


        Realistically, the American "billion" is becoming more widespread
        even in Britain, but I would guess the average man in the street
        in Britain would say something like

            "A billion is a million million, that is 1,000,000,000"

        because he doesn't really know, and numbers that size are beyond
        his comprehension anyway.  I can't imagine what a crowd of a
        million looks like, even though I can say it's ten Wembleys.  Once
        you get into such areas, only mathematicians and economists are
        really interested (and really understand the concept of "how big").

    A few years ago I edited a book by Dr John Gribbin, then Physics
    Editor or Consultant for _New_Scientist_. His practice was to
    use `billion' in the American way, but to make it clear (in a
    note to an article or a book) that he meant the quantity that
    was traditionally expressed in British English as `a thousand
    million'. I think this was the form he imposed on NS articles
    at the time (early '80s).
    
    But any English writer is likely to keep an eye on the American 
    market; that's how the culture crumbles.
    
    b

    5,000,000,000 people is 5 Gigapeople.  That's one two-hundredth
    of a Teraperson.

    Jeff.

    Re .30
    
>    So, Brits, how many people are there in the world?  Let's say it's
         ^^^^^
    Yuk ! I hate you . 
    This term really aggravates me .
                                        *
    
    Calm down , get a grip .
    
    It's 5 k million .
    
    When I was young ( well ..... younger) I was told that 
    1 million was a thousand thousands
    1 billion was a million millions
    1 trillion was a billion billions and
    1 quadrillion was pretty damn big .                        
                                         
    You only introduced a new name when the previous one was repeated
    in the same number .
    Makes perfect sense to me .
    
    John J
    

To any of you British People (not Brits! :-)),

What about MILLIARD?  I seem to remember that this was the British usage for 
1*10^9.  I don't believe it's used in the United States.

Larry

    Milliard ?
    
    Milliarde is German , and represents 1 thousand millions in Britain
    , or 1 Billion to you American People (not Yanks :^))
    
    It's possible that we adopted it for a while , but I don't remember
    being taught it .               
    
    John J
    

    Re .16, .22, .27, .28, .35: .31 and .32 are correct. A billion in
    the UK is, and has been for some time (20+ years?) used to mean
    10^9 (it did use to mean 10^12). The Times and other quality
    newspapers, together with the BBC, use it to mean 10^9, and no longer
    (they used to) clarify this. Occasionally (but not within the last
    10 or so years to my recollection), a speaker on radio would use
    a billion meaning 10^12 and the interviewer would clarify things.
    Seems that either some dictionaries haven't caught up with things
    or so readers have very old dictionaries :-)
    
    BTW, in British scientific journals, giga, tera etc are used except
    when referring to money. There isn't enough money in the UK to make
    a trillion pounds, be it 10^12 or 10^18.

    re .34: I beg to differ, Jeff. A Gigaperson is _clearly_ someone
    who travels round the country playing at rock concerts.
    
    The halls just aren't big enough ...

    -- brian

    Re: .39.  Right on.  And if I bumped into a crowd of 1000 Gigapeople
    I'd be Terafied.
    
    Jeff.
    
    And I know it's wrong to start a sentence with "and".  But I do
    it quite a lot.  And I claim poetic licence.

    And a 'milliard' is the area covered by asphalt and concrete between
    the buildings at MLO :-).

    Re: .38 (and preceeding)
    
    Score one for progress!  It looks like the colonists have won another
    skirmish.  Add to that the contributions of McDonald's, Burger King, 
    Kentucky Fried Chicken, et al, and perhaps we will eventually get the 
    'u' out of _color_ and _labor_ and get _center_ and _theater_ to match 
    their rhyming partners (enter, renter, cater and dater [oops, sorry 
    about that, the latter is spelled _data_ in some parts of the U.S.]).
    
    ;^)  :^)

    Good grief!  What a digression (as usual, I suppose).  Being a computer
    person, I sort of preferred the British definition of the powers
    of a million, but then I guess logic doesn't always win.
    
    re .42, '-er' vs. '-re':
    
    The way American is pronounced, I would say drop the 'e' from '-er'
    and drop the 't' in '-nt-'.  Thus, 'center' would become 'cenr'
    (or should that be 'senr'?).
    
  --Simon
    

    Re .19 and writing cheques...
    
    The original instructions I received from my bank on writing cheques
    said that I should use the word 'ONLY' if the sum is a whole number
    of pounds, so:
    
    'Twenty five pounds only' -- but _not_ -- 'One pound sevenpence only'

    BTW, what's wrong with 'One hundred and one dollars and twenty five
    cents'?
        
    What about 'five and twenty' as another way of getting an A used
    early in the sequence.  You want an example? 
    
    At times of nn:25 and nn:35 many inhabitants of the British Isles say
    it is 'five and twenty past ...' or 'five and twenty to...'
    
    Nick

>>>        At times of nn:25 and nn:35 many inhabitants of the British Isles say
>>>    it is 'five and twenty past ...' or 'five and twenty to...'
    
>>>    Nick

   I should point out that Nick is a very old man, with a long grey
    beard!
    
    Youngling

re .44/.45

>   I should point out that Nick is a very old man, with a long grey
>    beard
    
 but does he eat the fabled blackbird pie?

		Steve

    By counting fox hounds, or dead pheasants I can get an A at the
    start of my integer counting...
    
    Fox hounds in the UK are into 'couples' so a lone hound is 'half
    a couple'.  Likewise, dead pheasants are counted in 'braces', so
    'half a brace' for a single bird.
    
    Odd numbers of either creature are counted as 'N and a half
    couples/braces'.

    Nick    
    Strange but true.

    Re .47 (Nick):
    
    Or you could use the Lawrence Welk method of cardinal numbers:
    
    
    Ah-one and ah-two ...
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Re .-abunch
    
    OK, it is clear that an old British billion was a million millions,
    and a modern British billion is a thousand millions, the same as an
    American billion.  Now, I used to think that an old British trillion
    was a million billions (a million British billions, that is), but
    .-something said that it was a (British) billion (British) billions,
    and no one contradicted that statement.  I also once read that a
    French billion was the same as an American billion, but I'm not sure
    whether to believe that -- my French-English dictionary (from around
    that age, billions and billions of years ago) gives milliard for
    million and doesn't talk about billions.  And I've been told that a
    German billionen is not what I thought it was.
    
    Could some kind people please fill in the missing names in this table.
    Thank you.
    
            American       old British                 French     German
    1e3     thousand       thousand                    mille      thousand
    1e6     million        million
    1e9     billion        thousand million
    1e12    trillion       billion
    1e15    quadrillion    thousand billion
    1e18    quintillion
    1e21    sextillion
    1e24    septillion

    	What you describe as "old British" is still in such common use that
    I would replace "modern British" by "English as frequently used in
    American owned companies".
    
    	My French-English dictionary tells me that "billion" translates to
    "billion" while "milliard" translates to "thousand million". Given both
    the French and the "old British" usage of "billion" as a million
    million I would guess that this is the usage that will win out in the
    EEC.

    Re .49, .50: 
            American       old British                 French     German
    1e3     thousand       thousand                    mille    thausend(?)
    1e6     million        million		       million  million(?)
    1e9     billion        thousand million	       milliard
    						   or billion (seldom used)
    1e12    trillion       billion		       trillion
    						   or billiard
    1e15    quadrillion    thousand billion	       quadrillion
    						   or trilliard
    1e18    quintillion					etc...
    1e21    sextillion
    1e24    septillion
			Denis.

    Does that mean, Denis, that in America you would be a Billionaire?

    Re .50.  Thank you for the comment about French.  The comment about
    English contradicts several of the older replies in this note.  It
    had seemed to be established (in this note) that for the last 25
    years, British numbers had been Americanized.  Now I don't know
    which to believe.
    
    Re .51.  Thank you.
    
    Does anyone know the German, and the rest of the British?  Please?

    Re .52: I sure wish I would, but English-speaking people seem to have
    a strong tendancy to drop the I instead of the first A in my name and
    thus making a duck out of me rather than a rich man.
    			Denis.

    Most of the British media use billion in the American way (i.e. 1e9). 
    However, many people are unhappy with this and still use billion to
    mean a million million.
    
    To avoid confusion, I never use named numbers greater than a million. 
    For example:
    
        1e6	= 	million
    	1e9	=	thousand million
    	1e12	=	million million
    
    When you get much above this, it is much easier to use mathematical
    notation.  Does anyone regularly use numbers greater than 1e12 except
    in a scientific context?
    
    Mat.
    *:o)
    
    PS  Milliard is archaic British for thousand million (if that hasn't
    already been said).
    

    >Does anyone regularly use numbers greater than 1e12 except
    >in a scientific context?
    
    Yes, financial reports in Japan, and most surely Italy and Peru
    and some other places.  My co-workers are all millionaires, and
    my landlord is most likely a billionaire.

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    Yeah, so who needs billions!