World population disputed...sort of Canada and France argue that the world population is not approximately 6.6 billion.* In fact, they argue that the world population is 1,000 times smaller!** How can this be? As tempted as I am to let it stand with Canada and France being, well, Canada and France, I should explain the situation.

If you live in the United States, the United Kingdom, or most other English speaking nations, the world population is approximately 6.6 billion. But if you live in the rest of the world, "6.6 billion" might not be accurate. Confused? Read on.

We great US citizens think "6.6 billion" equals 6,600,000,000. But most other nations think "6.6 billion" equals 6,600,000,000,000 (or "6.6 trillion" in the US). Who's right? Both. The difference can be summed up by explaining "short scale" versus "long scale"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_scale

Simply, short scale uses 1,000 as its base (e.g., 1,0003 = 1,000,000,000 = 1 billion), whereas long scale uses 1,000,000 as its base (e.g., 1,000,0002 = 1,000,000,000,000 = 1 billion).

Long scale came first, so it is historically correct. But, short scale makes more sense for common language, so it is practically correct. America was introduced to the short scale in the 1700s and thereafter began teaching it in schools. Britain switched to short scale once it realized that the number values for long-scale terms such as "billion" and "trillion" are useless to anyone but the likes of cosmologists. When Britain switched, so did most of the English-speaking world. Interestingly, even though France had widely adopted short scale terminology in the early 1800s (likely due to its common usefulness), it decided to switch back to long scale in 1961. (Canada, of course, did the same.) Most of the world follows long scale or its own language scale. The world might be split over what a "billion" actually is, but that's why we have SI units.

So, I misrepresented the situation at the beginning. But you wouldn't have read the post if I told you upfront it was actually about random knowledge. Oh yeah, and don't forget to specify which scale you're using when you negotiate a business deal in "billions."

* Not really true.
** Not really true either.

source: thetoughtrail.blogspot.com