Ray Dillinger writes:

And in the US, "billiards" is a game played with cues and balls on a felt-covered slate table. In the UK, it's also a very large number. Thankfully, so large that that definition rarely comes into conversation. As I understand cross-pond conversions, it goes like this....

USA UK Scientific Thousand Thousand 1E3 Million Million 1E6 Billion Milliard 1E9 Trillion Billion 1E12 Quadrillion Billiard 1E15 Quintillion Trillion 1E18 Sextillion Trilliard 1E21 Septillion Quadrillion 1E24 Octillion Quadrilliard 1E27

See this table from Merriam-Webster: http://www.m-w.com/mw/table/number.htm - GH _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com