Thought for the day

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Really Big Numbers

The USA often features in the top 20 of lists containing the richest countries in the world.

At the end of 2018 the USA national debt stood at a shade under 22 trillion dollars.

We bandy numbers around containing the words billion and trillion on a regular basis, but have you ever stopped to consider how big they actually are?

As an example, if I piled one trillion £1 coins on a football pitch, and you could pick one up every second, without ever taking a break - how long do you think it would take to pick them all up.

A year?

10 years?

1000 years?

Not even close. If you could live long enough and never take a rest it would take you...

Wait for it...

32,000 years! :eek:

And that’s just one trillion. And that’s the small trillion with only 12 zeros.


One of the richest countries in the world? My arse!



And for those of you wondering where you’ve heard something similar before, it was the book ‘A Walk in the Woods’ by Bill Bryson. Although I think the USA national debt was only about 6-7 trillion when he wrote the book.
 
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wheresthetorch

Dreaming of Celeste
Location
West Sussex
If you fold a piece of paper 103 times, the thickness will be larger than the observable Universe: 93 billion light-years.
 
Really Big Numbers

The USA often features in the top 20 of lists containing the richest countries in the world.

At the end of 2018 the USA national debt stood at a shade under 22 trillion dollars.

We bandy numbers around containing the words billion and trillion on a regular basis, but have you ever stopped to consider how big they actually are?

As an example, if I piled one trillion £1 coins on a football pitch, and you could pick one up every second, without ever taking a break - how long do you think it would take to pick them all up.

A year?

10 years?

1000 years?

Not even close. If you could live long enough and never take a rest it would take you...

Wait for it...

32,000 years! :eek:

And that’s just one trillion. And that’s the small trillion with only 12 zeros.


One of the richest countries in the world? My arse!



And for those of you wondering where you’ve heard something similar before, it was the book ‘A Walk in the Woods’ by Bill Bryson. Although I think the USA national debt was only about 6-7 trillion when he wrote the book.

Does that calculation include the time out needed to spend a penny?
 
OP
OP
Tenacious Sloth
Location
Huntingdon, UK
[QUOTE 5518715, member: 9609"]not sure if we are getting $ & £ mixed up, but shifting 22 trillion pound coins would be some operation (I doubt you could get them all on a football pitch - they would weigh a 192 million ton.
to shift them in a year you would need to be filling an artic every 4.26 seconds.

As for the national debt thing, (not sure how much of this I understand) but a great deal of that money is owed to the people of america so it is in effect still amercan money - and of course you would also need to take into account americas assets, its whole infrastructure would be worth a bob or two.
(the USA is a wealthy nation)[/QUOTE]

I used the £1 coin purely as a mechanism to demonstrate the size of the number. I don’t think they do $1 coins. And if I’d used dollar notes you’d probably have pointed out that some of them would blow away.

Interesting how quickly you worked out how many would fit in an arctic. Reminds me of a Google interview question where they ask you how many ping pong balls would fit in a double-decker bus.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
I used the £1 coin purely as a mechanism to demonstrate the size of the number. I don’t think they do $1 coins. And if I’d used dollar notes you’d probably have pointed out that some of them would blow away.

Interesting how quickly you worked out how many would fit in an arctic.[B¤ Reminds me of a Google interview question where they ask you how many ping pong balls would fit in a double-decker bus.[/B]
Two sets of stairs or just the one?
 
preserve wildlife...………..pickle a squirel
 

Ming the Merciless

There is no mercy
Location
Inside my skull
Really Big Numbers

The USA often features in the top 20 of lists containing the richest countries in the world.

At the end of 2018 the USA national debt stood at a shade under 22 trillion dollars.

We bandy numbers around containing the words billion and trillion on a regular basis, but have you ever stopped to consider how big they actually are?

As an example, if I piled one trillion £1 coins on a football pitch, and you could pick one up every second, without ever taking a break - how long do you think it would take to pick them all up.

A year?

10 years?

1000 years?

Not even close. If you could live long enough and never take a rest it would take you...

Wait for it...

32,000 years! :eek:

And that’s just one trillion. And that’s the small trillion with only 12 zeros.


One of the richest countries in the world? My arse!



And for those of you wondering where you’ve heard something similar before, it was the book ‘A Walk in the Woods’ by Bill Bryson. Although I think the USA national debt was only about 6-7 trillion when he wrote the book.

This is why I prefer contactless .
 

LeetleGreyCells

Un rouleur infatigable
One of my personal favourites is...

See a pin and pick it up, and all that day you'll have a pin.

’[…] After all, you never know.’
‘You never know what?’
'Just… never know, you know.’
'Sometimes you know,’ said Ridcully. 'I think I know quite a lot that I didn’t used to know. It’s amazing what you do end up knowing, I sometimes think. I often wonder what new stuff I’ll know.’
'Well, you never know.’
'That’s a fact.’
 
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