Nicolas Chuquet
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Nicolas Chuquet (born 1445 (some sources say c. 1455) in Paris, France; died 1488 (some sources say c. 1500) in Lyon, France) was a French mathematician whose great work, Triparty en la science des nombres [1] (http://www.miakinen.net/vrac/nombres#lettres_zillions), was unpublished in his lifetime. Most of it, however, was copied without attribution by Estienne de La Roche in his 1520 textbook, Larismetique. In the 1870s, scholar A Aristide Marre discovered Chuquet's manuscript and published it in 1880. The manuscript contained notes in de la Roche's handwriting.
Chuquet's thinking was brilliant and far ahead of its time. He invented his own notation for algebraic concepts and exponentiation. He may have been the first mathematician to recognize zero and negative numbers as exponents.
His book shows a huge number divided into groups of six digits, and in a short passage he states that the groups can be called
- "million, the second mark byllion, the third mark tryllion, the fourth quadrillion, the fifth quyillion, the sixth sixlion, the seventh septyllion, the eighth ottyllion, the ninth nonyllion and so on with others as far as you wish to go.
Because of this, he is sometimes credited as the inventor of the modern names for large numbers. However, this is an oversimplification. The word million had been in use centuries prior to Chuquet.
In 1475, Jehan Adam recorded the words "bymillion" and "trimillion" (for 1012 and 1018) and it is believed that these words or similar ones were in general use at that time. Chuquet was, however, the original author of the earliest work using of a systematic, extended series of names ending in -illion or -yllion.
The system in which the names million, billion, trillion, etc. refer to powers of one million is sometimes referred to as the Chuquet system.
Around 1550, Jacques Pelletier du Mans took a system based on powers of 106, and added the term "milliard" for 109. This system was then used in England and Germany and part of the rest of Europe. This system is sometimes referred to as the Chuquet-Pelletier system.
Much later, in France and in the USA, a different short scale system became established where the term billion signifies 109. Last century, England and other English-speaking countries joined the USA and other countries in using the short scale system; whereas, France rejoined Germany, most of Europe, and much of the world in the Chuquet-Pelletier, or long scale, system.
What is undeniable is that Chuquet was the author of the earliest system (published in the works Larismetique (1520) by Estienne de la Roche without attribution and Triparty en la science des nombres (written before 1488 but only published 1870) by Nicolas Chuquet) for names of large numbers by combining Latin-derived prefixes with the suffix -illion.
| Base 10 | Systematics | Chuquet | Pelletier | American or Short Scale | Base 16 | SI Prefix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 0 | Million 0 | <center> unit | <center> unit | 16 0 | <center> [unit] | |
| 10 3 | Million 0.5 | <center> thousand | <center> thousand | <center> thousand | 16 2.5 | <center> kilo |
| 10 6 | Million 1 | <center> Million | <center> Million | <center> Million | 16 5 | <center> Mega |
| 10 9 | Million 1.5 | <center> thousand million | <center> Milliard | <center> Billion | 16 7.5 | <center> Giga |
| 10 12 | Million 2 | <center> Billion | <center> Billion | <center> Trillion | 16 10 | <center> Tera |
| 10 15 | Million 2.5 | <center> thousand billion | <center> Billiard | <center> Quadrillion | 16 12.5 | <center> Peta |
| 10 18 | Million 3 | <center> Trillion | <center> Trillion | <center> Quintillion | 16 15 | <center> Exa |
| 10 21 | Million 3.5 | <center> thousand trillion | <center> Trilliard | <center> Sextillion | 16 17.5 | <center> Zetta |
| 10 24 | Million 4 | <center> Quadrillion | <center> Quadrillion | <center> Septillion | 16 20 | <center> Yotta |