In this first article on the website, we will cover the -illion numbers, often the first large numbers that anyone would learn.
Million
The million, 1,000,000, is considered the "smallest large number". However, it is still "small" enough to be familiar in our physical world. Its name means a "great thousand", and in fact all further -illions are based on this number. Since "a million" is used expressively to represent some large quantity (along with the numbers 50,000,000, and less commonly 85,000,000), people sometimes say "literally millions" when talking about quantities in the millions range.
A faucet would take 347 days, or close to a whole year, to waste a million gallons. A sphere of that many gallons of water would be 19 meters wide, and there is a good chance that such a sphere is taller than your house.
A million seconds is 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds, meaning that two weeks is already over a million seconds. A million minutes is 694 days, 10 hours, and 40 minutes, so two years is over a million minutes. A million hours is 41666 days and 16 hours, which is over 114 years, meaning a million hours is close to the duration of the longest human lifespan ever recorded. A million days is about 2738 years, meaning a million days ago was close to as far back as when Rome was founded. A million weeks is about 19166 years, or just 7 times a million days. A million months is 83333 years and 4 months, or about 30436876 days.
Billion
The billion (1,000,000,000) is the next -illion after the million, and its name is extrapolated from the Latin prefix bi- (meaning two), and the -illion ending. Numbers of this magnitude occur frequently in fields such as astronomy, and also in our modern world, we hear of billions of dollars, and computers usually perform a number of operations per second on the order of a billion.
A billion seconds is about 31 years and 8 months, so a person can easily live to be a billion seconds old (most people live between 2,000,000,000 and 3,000,000,000 seconds). A billion minutes is about 1901 years, so a billion minutes ago was when the Roman Empire was still growing, and Christianity was emerging. A billion hours is about 114,060 years, and so a billion hours ago was around the beginnings of humanity. A billion days is about 2,738,000 years (and a billion weeks is 7 times that). A billion months is 83,333,333 years and 4 months, and so a billion months ago was still in the time of the dinosaurs.
Trillion
A trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is the next -illion after the billion, and its name comes from a combination of tri- meaning three, and the -illion ending. People still commonly talk of trillions of dollars (as in things like countries that are trillions of dollars in debt), and in fact googling 'trillion' returns a lot of results talking about trillions of dollars.