Billions (short Scale) to Quadrillions (B to quad)
1 billion (short scale) equals 0.000001 quadrillions exactly.
How to convert billions (short scale) to quadrillions
To convert billions (short scale) to quadrillions, multiply the number of billions (short scale) by 0.000001. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply quadrillions by 1,000,000.
quadrillions = billions (short scale) × 0.000001
Example: 10 billions (short scale) = 0.00001 quadrillions.
Large-number names differ around the world: this site uses the short scale (billion = 10⁹) by default, and lists the long-scale billion separately.
About these units
Billion (short Scale) (B)
One thousand million (10⁹). The meaning used in the US, UK and most English-speaking countries today.
For decades British and American speakers meant different things by billion. The short-scale sense, a thousand million, took hold in the United States in the 19th century, while Britain kept the older meaning of a million million. From the 1950s the short scale spread through British technical writing and journalism, and Winston Churchill had remarked in 1941 that for practical financial purposes a billion was a thousand millions.
The official break came on December 20, 1974. Asked in Parliament whether ministers would be required to use the traditional British meaning, Prime Minister Harold Wilson answered no, explaining that billion was now used internationally for 1,000 million and that using it any other way would cause confusion. He conceded it could still be read as a million million and asked colleagues to avoid ambiguity. Today a billion is 10⁹, matching the SI prefix giga, and the UN projected that world population would reach 8 billion on November 15, 2022.
1 billion (short scale) = 1,000,000,000 pieces (exactly).
Sources: Hansard, 20 Dec 1974: Billion (Definition), written answer; Wikipedia: Billion; United Nations: Day of Eight Billion
Quadrillion (quad)
10¹⁵ in the short scale.
Quadrillion is 10¹⁵, a thousand trillion, on the short scale, and it is a number most people meet only through energy statistics. The U.S. Energy Information Administration defines a quad as a quadrillion British thermal units and notes that national energy use typically reaches quadrillions of Btu. Its examples include 35.43 quads from petroleum, 33.61 from natural gas, and 8.17 from coal.
The name uses the Latin quadri-, four. It appears among the terms in Nicolas Chuquet's unpublished manuscript of 1484, alongside byllion and tryllion. On the long scale the same 10¹⁵ is called a billiard, and a quadrillion means 10²⁴. The SI prefix for 10¹⁵ is peta-. A quadrillion seconds is about 31.7 million years.
1 quadrillion = 1×10¹⁵ pieces (exactly).
Sources: U.S. EIA: British thermal units (Btu); Wikipedia: Names of large numbers; BIPM SI Brochure, 9th edition (2019)
Related conversions
- Quadrillions to billions (short scale) (reverse)
- Billions (short scale) to pieces
- Billions (short scale) to dozens
- Billions (short scale) to lakhs
- Billions (short scale) to millions
- Billions (short scale) to crores
- Billions (short scale) to pairs
- Billions (short scale) to hundred
- Billions (short scale) to gross
- Billions (short scale) to thousand
- Billions (short scale) to trillions (short scale)
- Billions (short scale) to score
- Billions (short scale) to half dozens
- Pieces to quadrillions
- Dozens to quadrillions
- Lakhs to quadrillions
- Millions to quadrillions
- Crores to quadrillions
See all counting & quantity units.