Apparently, last evening Harvey and I were having a tough time with the concepts of a "Million," a "a Billion," and a "Trillion" of anything, whether it's the national debt, some company's profits, or the odds of winning the lottery.
You know how it is.
And there's always some clown on TV that thinks we can understand it better if we try to imagine that if all that money were stacked in [name your favorite denomination] dollar bills, it would reach as far as [name your favorite celestial body]. Bottom line: whoosh! Understanding the difference is still above our heads.
So, we tried converting the numbers to time.
60 seconds/min X 60 minutes/hr X 24 hours/day = 86,400 seconds/day.
1,000,000 (a Million) seconds divided by 86,400 seconds/day = 11.57 days.
1,000,000,000 (a Billion) seconds divided by 86,400 seconds/day = 11,574. days or 31.7 years.
We are beginning to sense a difference between a Million something and a Billion something: 11 days vs 31 years.
1,000,000,000 (a Trillion) seconds divided by 86,400 seconds/day = 11574074.0 days or 31,709.79 years.
Ouch! My hair begins to hurt just thinking about it. Gimme a beer. NOW!
So, next time someone tosses around one of those numbers that sort of sounds alike, ask your bartender for a pencil and work out the math on a napkin.
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