One of the systems is called the short scale.

The names of the numbers are formed this way:

At the beginning of the word, there’s a Latin number for the power that is added to the thousand.
And then, “-illion” is added.

So, 1 million is 1000 in the power of 2, or 1,000^{1 + 1}, one billion (milliard) — 1,000^{1 + 2}, and 1 trillion is 1,000^{1 + 3}. And so on.

To find out the number of zeros in a big number, you need to use the formula 3n + 3 where n is the number of the power of the number name added to the 1st power of the thousand (where n ≥ 1).

Example: Trillion is 1 000^{1 + 3}. Use the formula and you get this: 3n + 3 = 3 × 3 + 3 = 9 + 3 = 12. So, a trillion is 1 with 12 zeros or 1,000,000,000,000, or 10¹².

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