Tenacious Sloth
Guru
- Location
- Huntingdon, UK
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!
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.
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!
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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