Problem of the Week

Numbers are read from left to right, in groups of 3 digits.

They could be thought of as place-value houses with each house broken into hundreds, tens, and ones (see https://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/place-value-houses)

The first house is the first 3 digits from the right: ones (O), tens (T) and hundreds (H).

The second 3 digits are in the thousands house.

The third 3 digits are in the millions house.

The fourth 3 digits are in the billions house.

After this comes trillions, quadrillions and quintillions houses.

The ‘houses’ in the number should be separated by a small space (not by a comma).

The first 2 digits are in the fifth house – the trillions house.

The number is 23 trillion, 109 billion, 723 million, 424 thousand, and twenty-seven.

The photo of the sign was taken in the United States in early 2020.

The Unites States’ debt is now well over 30 trillion US dollars.