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I'm reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in English for the first time, and came across the passage when Zaphod Beeblebrox is going to steal the Heart of Gold.

It strikes me that it says things like:

Within seconds he ran out onto the deck and waved and grinned at over three billion people.

It is implied that this is a huge event, and he is the President of the Galaxy, so many, many people should be watching.

Wikipedia says English billions used to be a million millions, but it became more popular to mean a thousand millions around 1950. Given the Earth currently hosts around seven new-billion people, 3 new-billion people doesn't seem to be that many people for the whole Galaxy. The Earth didn't count in that moment - it was being destroyed, and we didn't have intergalactical tri-D TV at the time, anyways - but it still sounds like too few.

On the other hand, at the time of writing, TVs weren't so common, so great events like the Apollo mission weren't seen by that many people live. But, once again, the story is about more technologically advanced civilizations, so it won't be that rare to think of better TV penetration.

So... Is there any canon reference about this, either on the radio shows, books, TV series, movie...? Any interview with Douglas Adams stating this itself?

Were there a thousand million watchers in the Galaxy, or a million millions?

Rand al'Thor
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mgarciaisaia
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    I read that to mean that he waved directly at 3 billion people, i.e., there were 3 billion people attending the event in person, and the figure did not include television audiences. – ApproachingDarknessFish Feb 11 '17 at 23:48
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    Oh, no. It's explicitly stated that The three billion people weren't actually there. It's the next sentence, in fact. I'm on mobile, I won't copy the whole extract now - sorry. – mgarciaisaia Feb 11 '17 at 23:51
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    Even in the '90s, it was still common in England for billion to mean million million rather than thousand million. I don't know what usage is like today, though. – Dranon Feb 12 '17 at 00:34
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    @Dranon - I've never met anyone British who's ever meant "billion" in any other sense than the US version. I would be startled to come across a reference from anything after the 1960s – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 00:39
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    I used to think of a billion as a million million maybe 10-15 years ago (though I was aware of the "American billion"). – Ben Millwood Feb 12 '17 at 05:29
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    In 1974 I had a letter read out of R4's PM which expressed dismay that HM, the Queen, had used the US meaning of billion when opening the Sullum Voe oil terminal. – LadySynthia Feb 12 '17 at 09:20
  • @LadySynthia - Now that is interesting. Did the presenter offer any commentary? – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 10:21
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    @Dranon: Current British usage is the newer thousand million version, and has been for quite some time. – T.J. Crowder Feb 12 '17 at 12:21
  • @T.J.Crowder It's certainly possible when I was growing up there that I misinterpreted my teachers mentioning both meanings of billion for commonality rather than a caution when reading older works or dealing with older people. Then again, one of my contemporaries was insistent that billion meant million million, but he was a bit stuck-up. – Dranon Feb 12 '17 at 15:57
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    @Dranon: Sorry, by "quite some time" I meant ~20 years to my personal knowledge; can't speak to before that. So depending on how old you are... :-) I wouldn't be at all surprised if Adams meant million million when writing THHGTTG, given when he was writing and his age at the time. I'm just glad we're all mostly on the same page these days. :-) – T.J. Crowder Feb 12 '17 at 16:02
  • Even if he meant old billion/trillion, 3 trillion people watching a galactic wide huge event seems kind of low. – Xavon_Wrentaile Feb 12 '17 at 16:38
  • Douglas Adams sadly died in 2001, aged just 49. That means, of course, that he was born in 1952, and so his schooldays happened in the 1960s (he would have left school, aged 18, in 1970). Very few pupils in English schools back in the '60s were taught the American way of adding-up! A billion originally meant a million million, and that was what schools taught. Furthermore, he read English at university, not mathematics. In the unlikely event that he remembered any of his school maths, when writing his novels, it's a good bet he didn't recall this abstruse definition, if he was ever taught it. – Ed999 May 08 '18 at 07:16
  • As a young New Zealand student in 1975, one day I sat with two maths textbook on my desk. They were apparently identical save that one labelled 1000000000 as "one thousand million" (which I expected) and the other as "one billion" (which surprised me). It turned out the school had initially obtained a class set of the English edition, but when a second class set was required, the US edition was mandated by the education department. – Martin Kealey Sep 06 '23 at 05:34

1 Answers1

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He uses it inconsistently, so possibly he could mean either. In Life, the Universe and Everything he seems to think that it's a thousand thousand million.

The technology involved in making anything invisible is so infinitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a billion it is much simpler and more effective just to take the thing away and do without it.

Life, the Universe and Everything - Chapter 3

Whereas in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and elsewhere) he largely uses it to mean a thousand million.

"Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book's microprocessors," he said, "and no one knew much about the Earth of course."

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Chapter 6

Adams, being a reasonably well read man would undoubtedly have been aware that there certainly aren't 1 trillion stars (a million million) in the Milky Way.

Not that he ever went swimming of course. His busy schedule would not allow it. He was the way he was because billions of years ago when the Vogons had first crawled out of the sluggish primeval seas of Vogsphere, and had lain panting and heaving on the planet's virgin shores…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Chapter 6

Adams, being a reasonably well read man would undoubtedly have been aware that the universe wasn't hundreds of billions of years old, although he does make reference to events (such as the Krikkit Wars) having occurred twenty billion years ago.

and again in Mostly Harmless when referring to the population of the Earth in the early 1990s

"Oh don't get all maudlin on me," snapped Ford. "We have to find your daughter and we have to find that bird thing."
"How?" said Arthur. "This is a planet of five and a half billion people, and…"

Mostly Harmless – Chapter 23

Interestingly, there's another science goof later in Mostly Harmless when he describes Rupert as having been found beyond Pluto, but only a third of a billion miles from The Sun. Assuming he means the British billion, that would place it well outside the solar system (almost a quarter of a light year outside) whereas if he means the US billion, that would place its orbit inside Jupiter's

This is normally very bad for a video camera. But when the sun is roughly a third of a billion miles away it doesn't do any harm. In fact it hardly makes any impression at all. You just get a small point of light right in the middle of the frame, which could be just about anything. It was just one star in a multitude.

Mostly Harmless – Chapter 21

Valorum
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    A lot of well read people are not very good with numbers. I bet Adams didn't have a clue how many stars in the Milky Way, found the "hundred billion" in a reference source, and copied it without worrying about how many that was, and the same for the population of the Earth, etc. – user14111 Feb 12 '17 at 01:07
  • @user14111 - As a writer of science fiction and a contemporary (and good friend) of Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Sheckley, I'd be surprised if he didn't have a reasonably solid grasp of current scientific thought, at least at a "listens to radio programmes about science on the wireless" sort of level. – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 01:27
  • Some sci-fi writers are more sciencey than others. I count Sheckley (one of my favorites) and Vonnegut (well, The Sirens of Titan was pretty good) with the others. At least, being Americans, they were less likely to get their billions and trillions mixed up. – user14111 Feb 12 '17 at 02:29
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    I wonder if the inconsistencies are his, or his editor's –  Feb 12 '17 at 06:30
  • Regarding "20 billion years" and age of universe: At the time it was written, there were inconsistencies between calculations based on age of oldest stars and calculated age of universe, based on measurements of e.g. Hubble's constant. These were still being refined, and the confidence with which we quote 13.8 billion years was not there. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe#History – Neil Slater Feb 12 '17 at 08:40
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    How do we know that when Adams heard "a billion" he understood it to mean a thousand million? If someone told him "there are a hundred billion stars in the galaxy" how do we know he interpreted that as a hundred thousand million and not a hundred million million? Both numbers mean "more than you can imagine" outside of mathematics. – CJ Dennis Feb 12 '17 at 09:01
  • @neilSlater - Inconsistencies, yes, but not to that degree of scale. The major argument in the 1970s (as my link suggested) was between those who thought it was about ten billion and those that thought it might be as much as seventeen. – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 10:19
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    @CJDENNIS - He would have been aware that there aren't trillions of people living on Earth, at the very least! – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 10:23
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    a thousand thousand million isn't that "a million million"? – Federico Feb 12 '17 at 14:53
  • @Federico - Yes indeed. I was trying to highlight that in the quote he's listed it as "nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine". We'd refer to that as one short of a UK billion or 100 US billions. – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 14:59
  • yes, and? "a million million minus one out of a [billion/ million million]". I still don't see what needs to be stressed/highlit with "thousand thousand" – Federico Feb 12 '17 at 15:14
  • @Federico - In the top example, what he's describing in numbers is a US trillion, not a US billion. In every other example he seems to be using the word billion to mean US billion. – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 15:16
  • I give up. apparently I am unable to express myself. – Federico Feb 12 '17 at 15:17
  • @Federico - In Life, the Universe and Everything he seems to think that a billion is a thousand thousand million (1,000,000,000,000). in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy he seems to think it's a thousand million (1,000,000,000). I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it. – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 15:19
  • I understand as much. You then say (your first answer to me) that you are trying to highlight that in the quote is written as "999.999.999.999". my question is, what is to be highlit with "thousand thousand million" that is not evident when using "million million"? – Federico Feb 12 '17 at 15:24
  • @Federico - It's intended to highlight the inconsistency in a nice easily accessible way for readers - thousand thousand million vs thousand million. – Valorum Feb 12 '17 at 15:29
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    well researched dude !!! – Fattie Feb 12 '17 at 16:30
  • @Valorum - I believe that it was (not yet Sir) Robin Day and he commented in his usual harrumphing manner that it was an sign of the times. Surely that was lese majeste? – LadySynthia Feb 13 '17 at 11:31
  • @JoeBlow - It's the only way I know how :-) – Valorum Feb 13 '17 at 12:13
  • Going out on a limb here, maybe he didn't care because he was mostly just trying to use numbers so mind bogglingly large that the exact values didn't really matter? – Broklynite Feb 13 '17 at 13:35
  • @Broklynite - True, but when he does that he tends to use the nonsense word "grillion". – Valorum Feb 13 '17 at 13:35
  • @Valorum that's fair enough- that might also be worth noting in your answer – Broklynite Feb 13 '17 at 18:25
  • Douglas Adams read English at university, not mathematics or science. He never had to learn such abstruse details as the definition of 'billion'. You are all treating him as though he was writing a textbook on science, when in fact the reason he wrote comedy was to avoid having to know any science! You believe that he wrote science fiction. But he didn't. He wrote comedy. He invented nearly all the so-called science: improbability drives, kangaroo drives, nutrimatic machines, etc. The wilder and less plausible the science, the bigger the laugh. He knew squat about real science! – Ed999 May 08 '18 at 07:28
  • Apropos "nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a billion", I always found first "million" (after the word "thousand", when it appears later) to be extraneous and quite jarring. Among folk who grew up with the long scale, who expected or did not expect "million" to appear more than once? – Martin Kealey Sep 06 '23 at 05:39