Nicolas Chuquet


Nicolas Chuquet was a French mathematician. 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.
In 1475, Jehan Adam recorded the words "bymillion" and "trimillion" and it is believed that these words or similar ones were in general use at that time.
In 1484, Chuquet wrote an article Triparty en la science des nombres, which was unpublished in his lifetime. Most of it, however, was copied without attribution by Estienne de La Roche in his 1520 textbook, l'Arismetique. In the 1870s, scholar Aristide Marre discovered Chuquet's manuscript and published it in 1880. The manuscript contained notes in de la Roche's handwriting. His article shows a huge number divided into groups of six digits, and in a short passage he states that the groups can be called:
In a second passage, he wrote:
The extract from Chuquet's manuscript, the transcription and translation provided here all contain an original mistake: one too many zeros in the 804300 portion of the fully written out example: 745324'8043000 '700023'654321...
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.
In 1514, Budaeus introduced the term Milliard or Milliart for 1012, which was widely publicised around 1550 by the influential Jacques Peletier du Mans. Milliard was reduced to 109 around the end of the 17th century, leaving the modern Long scale system. This system is sometimes referred to as the Chuquet-Peletier system.
Much later, in France and in the US, a different system, the short scale, became established where the term billion signifies 109.
Last century, England and other English-speaking countries joined the US and some countries in using the short scale system; whereas, France rejoined Germany, much of Europe, and some other countries in the Chuquet-Peletier, or long scale, system.
Short scale
comparison		 Chuquet Peletier Systematics Base 10 SI Prefix
unit
unit
unit
 Million 0 10 0
thousand
thousand
thousand
 Million 0.5 10 3
k
Million
Million
Million
 Million 1 10 6
M
Billion
thousand million
Milliard
 Million 1.5 10 9
G
Trillion
Billion
Billion
 Million 2 10 12
T
Quadrillion
thousand billion
Billiard
 Million 2.5 10 15
P
Quintillion
Trillion
Trillion
 Million 3 10 18
E
Sextillion
thousand trillion
Trilliard
 Million 3.5 10 21
Z
Septillion
Quadrillion
Quadrillion
 Million 4 10 24
Y