Millions £, and Billions £, in perspective maybe

[david boden]

We all hear politicians, businessmen, and news channels quoting these figures daily , and maybe we can't grasp the quantifiable difference.
I heard a great analogy recently, which helps to get our brains round the difference ( we already know that a billion is 1000x a million but can't grasp the concept ).

So, ---if you stayed awake for around 12 hours a day , and counted up to 1 million, it would take you around 18 DAYS.
If you stayed awake for 12 hours a day and counted up to 1 Billion, it would take you ????



Around 62 YEARS !

 

[david boden]

This doesn't look correct,---more like 50 YEARS.
Still quirky though.

 

[Zeus.]

Short scale it would, but I'm old school and think the long scale was a better definition
So Billion = 1,000,000,000,000 so by my cals about 50,000 years - so about the same time it takes the goverment to short Brexit out

 

[LondonDragon]

 

[David Cherry]

Hmmm.... I thought a billion was a million million, here in the UK that is. In the US it's 1000 million iirc.

 

[zozo]

billion

Billion = 10 to the power 12 = Million², Bi = 2, hence Billion.

So, ---if you stayed awake for around 12 hours a day , and counted up to 1 million, it would take you around 18 DAYS.
If you stayed awake for 12 hours a day and counted up to 1 Billion, it would take you ????

Depends how fast you count. But assume 2 numerals per second then it takes (500.000 seconds) 138 hours to get to a million. Obviously at some point it will take you longer to say/think 2 numerals. Thus actually it's not really calculable how long it takes to count to a billion.

 

[GlenD]

Estimated cost to do up the houses of parliament >£6 Billion!!!
Cost of building the shard, about £500 million?

Is anybody going to question the government on that one?

i.e. 1000 highly skilled workers, earning £1000 a day, working 365 days a year for 6 years - 2 billion. 1000 worker are not there and they are not earning £1000 a day.

Rant over

 

[david boden]

ZOZ----it might be two per second when your in the early stages, ---I don't think you're right when it comes to one ---- twenty seven million. two hundred and forty seven thousand, three hundred, and sixty eight though ----and onwards.
Anyway, it was supposed to be just a bit of fun----