Pieces to Billions (short Scale) (pc to B)

1 piece equals 1×10⁻⁹ billions (short scale) exactly.

1 piece = 1×10⁻⁹ billions (short scale)

How to convert pieces to billions (short scale)

To convert pieces to billions (short scale), multiply the number of pieces by 1×10⁻⁹. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply billions (short scale) by 1,000,000,000.

billions (short scale) = pieces × 1×10⁻⁹

Example: 10 pieces = 1×10⁻⁸ billions (short scale).

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

Piece (pc)

General & non-SICurrent unit

A single item.

Piece is the plain unit for counting individual items, with no grouping implied. The word reached English from Old French piece, which came from Late Latin pecia or petia, meaning a fragment or a parcel of land. Its ultimate origin is uncertain, though Wiktionary notes a possible Gaulish source. It displaced the native Old English styce, which meant the same kind of thing.

Wiktionary defines it as a single item belonging to a class of similar items, and the word turns up in compounds such as by the piece, piece rate, and piecework. Every other counting unit in this family is just a fixed number of pieces: a pair is 2, a dozen 12, a gross 144, and a great gross 1,728. Treating the piece as the base is what lets any of them convert into any other by simple multiplication or division.

The piece is the reference unit for counting & quantity on this site.

Sources: Wiktionary: piece

Billion (short Scale) (B)

General & non-SICurrent unit

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

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