Large Numbers    First page . . . Forward to page 3 . . . Last
page (page 7)  The Knuth -yllion Notation  Donald Knuth created
a system that extends much further than the standard Latin-based
system. In the essay Supernatural Numbers[37] he wrote:  When we
stop to examine our conventional numbers, it is immediately
apparent that these names are "Menschenwerk"; they could have
been designed much better. For example, it would be better to
forget about thousands entirely, and to make a myriad (104) the
next unit after hundreds.  So in this system the word "thousand"
is not used, and instead everything up to 9999 is named using
the traditional names for numbers up to 99 plus "hundred", and
no comma is used. For example:  127 = One hundred twenty-seven
1000 = Ten hundred 1356 = Thirteen hundred fifty-six 3000 =
Thirty hundred 4192 = Forty-one hundred ninety-two  104 is
called "myriad", a name that originally comes from ancient
Egypt. It is written 1,0000 — note that the comma is added to
separate the lowest four d