Re: Types of numerals; bases in natlangs.

>I was inspired by words like decillion and centillion and so on to wonder
>why English's and other Standard Averge European languages' systems use
>ten-
>to-the-sixth instead of ten-to-the-tenth.  If the base of the system is
>ten, it would seem that the exponents in powers of the base should also be
>expressed in base-ten.  I wondered why there are words for thousand and
>million, instead of words for hundred (10^2) and lakh (10^5)and 10^10,
>whatever that is, and so on up to googol (10^100).
>
>I thought of systems like the following:
>If the "first base" of the system is B, the system will have B bases.
>The lowest will be B, used for numbers up to B^B.
>The next will be B^B, used for numbers up to B^(B^2).
>The next will be B^(B^2), used for numbers up to B^(B^3).
>...
>... and so on ...
>...
>until;
>The Bth base will be B^(B^(B-1)), used for numbers up to B^(B^B).
>Tom H.C. in MI
There's also the yet more efficient Knuth's Extended Myriadic system, which
is strictly base 10 but new words for powers of 10 are added only when
unavoidable. That is, 10^3 is just ten hundreds and doesn't need a name on
its own; 10^4 is myriad, 10^8 myllion, and then 10^16 either byllion (short
count) or mylliard (long count).
See http://home.earthlink.net/~mrob/pub/math/largenum.html (near the bottom
of the page)

(The page should prove otherwise interesting, too.)

John Vertical

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