[Rodstar (Rod)]

When I was at school, we learnt in Maths that the Australian and British convention was that 1 Billion was equal to 1 million millions, but that the American convention was that 1 Billion was 1000 millions. We were required to follow the Australian/British convention.

It seems over time that the American convention is winning out. So, these days, when the Australian media refers to, say, a $11 billion stimulus package, they are referring to $11,000 million. This usage of the word billion also seems to have seeped into the numerical system referred to in amateur astronomical publications, but not completely consistently.

The net result is that I often a bit hesitant about what is meant when, for example, it is said that the Milky Way has 200 billion stars. Is that 200 million million stars, or just 200,000 million stars? Both are large figures, but the difference is still rather enormous (1000x).

I would have thought that by now the academic scientific community would have determined a unified system, which I would expect to be the American system. Does anyone know or have an opinion on this issue?

I would prefer to go with the Australian/British system, but I fear that the tide is strongly carrying us in the other direction!