How much is a Million?How much is a Billion?How much is a Trillion?

The next time you hear someone rather casually throw around a number that includes the word

"billion", think about it. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend.

• A million seconds is 12 days.A billion seconds is 31 years.A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

Billion2010-31

1979

Trillion2010

-31,68829,678 BC

• A million minutes ago was – 1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes ago.

• A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.

• A million hours ago was in 1885.A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth.

• Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000. • This country has not existed for a trillion

seconds. • Western civilization has not been around a

trillion seconds. • One trillion seconds ago – 31,688 years –

Neanderthals stalked the plains of Europe.

• Now that I've defined a billion, it might be useful to try to describe it in terms we should all be able to understand: money--or something as useful as it, credit cards (because very few people can even dream of owning a billion dollars)...

• A billion credit cards combined would weigh the same as: – 1562 hippopotamuses – 52 blue whales – 78 brachiosaures

• A billion credit cards laid end-to-end would reach: – 2.2 times around the earth – Down the length of the Amazon River 13 times – Over 938,000 US football fields – More than 14 times the length of the Great Wall of China

• A billion credit cards stacked up would be as high as: – 120 Mt. Everests – 7,219 Great Pyramids

• A tightly-packed stack of new $1,000 bills totaling $1 billion would be 63 miles high. In comparison, jet planes fly at 30,000 - 40,000 feet (5.7 - 7.7 miles high).

• A million dollars ago was five (5) seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury rate of spending.

• A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury rate of spending.

• The estimated population of the United States is 309,664,667, so each citizen's share of this debt is $44,742.46.

• The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $4.13 billion per day since September 28, 2007!

Concerned?

• Million: 1,000,000Billion: 1,000,000,000Trillion: 1,000,000,000,000Quintillion: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000Sextillion: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000Nonillion: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000Centillion: 1 followed by 303 zeros