Byr

A gigaannum or gigayear (Byr, Gyr or Gy) is a period of one billion years (10⁹ or 1,000,000,000 years). Retrospect time periods may be expressed as X billion years ago (bya). The prefix giga- is preferred to billion- to avoid confusion in the long and short scales over the meaning of billion; the postfix annum may be further qualified for precision as a sidereal year or Julian year.

Byr was formerly used in English-language geology and astronomy as a unit of one billion years. Subsequently the term gigaannum (Ga) has increased in usage, with Gy or Gyr still sometimes used in English-language works, at the risk of confusion with the gray). Astronomers use Gyr or Gy as an abbreviation for gigayear.

See also

Notes

Belarusian ruble

The Belarusian ruble (Belarusian: рубель rubyel, (partitive) genitive plural: рублёў rublyow) is the official currency of Belarus. The symbol for the ruble is Br and the ISO 4217 code is BYR.

History

First ruble, 1992 – 2000

As a result of the breakup of the supply chain in the former Soviet enterprises, goods started to be bought and sold in the market, often requiring cash settlement. The Belarusian unit of the USSR State Bank had neither the capacity nor the licence to print Soviet banknotes, so the government decided to introduce its own national currency to ease the cash situation. The German word Taler (Belarusian: талер), divided into 100 hrosh (Belarusian: грош) was suggested as the name for a Belarusian currency; but the Communist majority in the Supreme Soviet of Belarus rejected the proposal and stuck to the Russian word ruble.

From the collapse of the Soviet Union until May 1992, the Soviet ruble circulated in Belarus alongside the Belarusian ruble. New Russian banknotes also circulated in Belarus, but they were replaced by notes issued by the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus in May 1992. The first post-Soviet Belarusian ruble was assigned the ISO code BYB and replaced the Soviet currency at the rate of 1 Belarusian ruble = 10 Soviet rubles. It took about two years before the ruble became the official currency of the country.