Small Gross to Billions (short Scale) (sm gr to B)

1 small gross equals 1.2×10⁻⁷ billions (short scale) exactly.

1 small gross = 1.2×10⁻⁷ billions (short scale)

How to convert small gross to billions (short scale)

To convert small gross to billions (short scale), multiply the number of small gross by 1.2×10⁻⁷. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply billions (short scale) by 8,333,333.333 (rounded).

billions (short scale) = small gross × 1.2×10⁻⁷

Example: 10 small gross = 0.0000012 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

Small Gross (sm gr)

Medieval EnglishTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Ten dozen, 120 items, also called the long hundred. A medieval English counting unit for goods.

The small gross is 120, ten dozen, and it has more names than uses: great hundred, long hundred, and small gross all point to it. Behind it lies a habit of mixing twelves and tens. In Iceland and Scandinavia a hundred made of ten twelves had its own name, tolfrátt hundrað, to tell it apart from an ordinary hundred of ten tens. In Old Norse counting, the same system made a thousand equal to 1,200.

In England the long hundred was common in trade, and a proverb contrasted five score, meaning 100, for men, money, or pins with six score, meaning 120, for other goods. Nails were often sold by it. Around 1300 the Assize of Weights and Measures recorded a hundred kippers as 120 fish and a hundred ells of linen as 120 ells. The usage faded as Arabic numerals, which assume base 10, spread from the 14th century. Against familiar units, 120 is 10 dozen and five sixths of a gross.

1 small gross = 120 pieces (exactly).

Sources: World Wide Words: Tolfraedic (long hundred); Wikipedia: Long hundred; Wikipedia: Dozen

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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