From the introduction to Caleb and the Incredible Counting Machine
You will need to know how to say really big numbers if you read this book. The table below tells you how to say each part of a big number, and gives you an example for each so you can see just how big they are. But beware! Because we are not God and we don’t all have an Incredible Counting machine, scientists have to estimate these numbers – and the bigger the number the less accurate the estimate!
| How it’s written | How you say it | How many zeros?! | Example |
| 1,000 | Thousand | 1 followed by 3 zeros | Grains of rice on a plate |
| 1,000,000 | Million | 1 followed by 6 zeros | Bricks in an average secondary school |
| 1,000,000,000 | Billion | 1 followed by 9 zeros | Blades of grass on a football pitch |
| 1,000,000,000,000 | Trillion | 1 followed by 12 zeros | Grains of sand on a beach |
| 1,000,000,000,000,000 | Quadrillion | 1 followed by 15 zeros | Leaves in a square km of rain forest |
| 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Quintillion | 1 followed by 18 zeros | Insects in the world |
| 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Septillion | 1 followed by 21 zeros | Grains of sand in the world |
So for example, this is how you would read the number that the Incredible Counting Machines says is how many stars there are:
7,195,987,392,656,539,143,775
| How it’s written | How you say it |
| 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 | Seven septillion… (21 zeros) |
| 195,000,000,000,000,000,000 | … one hundred and ninety five quintillion… (18 zeros) |
| 987,000,000,000,000,000 | … nine hundred and eighty seven quadrillion… (15 zeros) |
| 392,000,000,000,000 | … three hundred and ninety two trillion… (12 zeros) |
| 656,000,000,000 | … six hundred and fifty six billion… (9 zeros) |
| 539,000,000 | … five hundred and thirty nine million… (6 zeros) |
| 143,000 | … one hundred and forty three thousand… (3 zeros) |
| 775 | … seven hundred and seventy five. |
Now you can challenge people in your house to say a really big number that you write down for them! Don’t forget to put a comma after every three numbers starting at the right… (otherwise they will really struggle!)
Do comment below and tell me how they got on!
Caleb and the Inventions 