Trillion

One trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 10^12, or one thousand billions. A trillion seconds is about 31,710 years.

A trillion is a million millions, or equivalently, a thousand billions. In scientific notation: 1 × 10^12. This is the scale at which national economies, government budgets, and astronomical distances operate.

The US GDP is about $28 trillion per year. The US national debt exceeds $34 trillion. A trillion seconds ago, humans hadn't yet invented agriculture. The Sun is about 150 billion meters from Earth (1.5 × 10^11), so a trillion meters would get you about 6.7 times to the Sun.

In computing, a trillion bytes is a terabyte (TB). A modern laptop hard drive is typically 0.5-2 TB. A trillion operations per second (teraFLOPS) is a measure of computing power; modern GPUs can achieve 10-100+ teraFLOPS.

Visualize a trillion to understand why this number is so far beyond normal human experience.

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More terms

BillionOne billion (1,000,000,000) is 10^9, or one thousand millions. A billion seconds is about 31.7 years.GoogolA googol is 10^100 (1 followed by 100 zeros). It far exceeds the number of atoms in the observable universe (~10^80).GoogolplexA googolplex is 10^googol, or 10^(10^100). It cannot be written out in full because it has more digits than atoms in the universe.InnumeracyInnumeracy is the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy: the inability to understand and work with numbers and basic mathematical concepts.MillionOne million (1,000,000) is 10^6, or one thousand thousands. A million seconds is about 11.5 days.View all glossary terms