A billion (interesting)

[Ed62]

I received an e-mail that was political, so I'll only post a small part of it. Here it is (I didn't do the math):

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
But one advertising agency did a good job of
Putting that figure into some perspective in
One of its releases.


A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were
Living in the Stone Age.

D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

Ed

[LCHIEN]

Putting it in terms of things long past has little meaning to me because I still have little concept of how long ago it was.
I am in engineering perticularly electronics and computers and I do have a have a good feel for both very large and very small numbers.

even more interesting is that the meaning of Billion is quite ambiguous in global usage:

http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifbillionaukview.shtml

To most Americans a billion is a thousand million (10^9) but to much of the world, a billion is a million million (10^12) which to americans is a trillion.

[jonmulzer]

That is quite interesting Loring. I was never aware of that. So when the British hear us talk about our National Debt being almost 10 Trillion they think it is a lot worse than it actually is (as if it were not bad enough.....).

[LCHIEN]

That is quite interesting Loring. I was never aware of that. So when the British hear us talk about our National Debt being almost 10 Trillion they think it is a lot worse than it actually is (as if it were not bad enough.....).

Yep! .

[germdoc]

Makes me think of Bill Gates...

http://evan.snew.com/ecgi/gates.cgi?...20755447180803

and

http://www.templetons.com/brad/billg.html

Looked at another way--if Bill Gates spent $1 million a day it would take him 68 YEARS to spend all of his wealth.

Retirement strategy #4: Persuade Bill Gates to spare me a million--he'd never miss it...

[cabinetman]

.
Motor Trend - Tech Tidbits - 04/08

[Sid]

Close, but . . .

I think there are errors in the calculations and/or interpretations:

1,000,000,000(sec) / 60(sec/min) / 60(min/hr) / 24(hr/day) / 365.25 (day/yr) = 31.69 years ago = 1976 (but 1959 would be right if it were calculated 17 years ago)

Similarly 1 billion minutes = 1901.3 years ago = late 106 AD (Jesus didn't live on earth that long)

And 1 billion hr = 114 thousand years ago (yes, in the stone age.)

And 1 billion days = 2.74 million years ago (not prior to bipedal hominids: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus)

Sid

[LCHIEN]

bravo, sid, you're a man of my way of thinking. I was thinking about checking those numbers...

If you don't do the math you should at least check it.

[cabinetman]

Ed - This should be a lesson to you to check your facts. You should know by now that there will always be someone that's going to.
.

[jonmulzer]

Interesting explanation Cabinetman, but I had always heard and read that the googol received its name because the person who thought of it looked to his infant son and ask what to name it. The child was just starting on jibberish and replied "googol". I have no idea which explanation is correct, if either of them are in fact. It just adds more color to the story.

[Ed62]

Ed - This should be a lesson to you to check your facts. You should know by now that there will always be someone that's going to.
.

If you noticed in the original post, I said I didn't do the math. These type of things are typically not correct, but I thought it was interesting, nontheless. A billion is a lot, no matter where you are.

Ed

[LCHIEN]

If you noticed in the original post, I said I didn't do the math. These type of things are typically not correct, but I thought it was interesting, nontheless. A billion is a lot, no matter where you are.

Ed

personally, spreading incorrect facts, is kind of, well, incorrect.

[cwithboat]

Looked at another way--if Bill Gates spent $1 million a day it would take him 68 YEARS to spend all of his wealth.

Retirement strategy #4: Persuade Bill Gates to spare me a million--he'd never miss it...

Actually, as much as I used to trash him, he is true to his word. The Gates Foundation must be giving away much more than a million a day (no fact checking here). Bill and Melissa are spending it on things slightly more important than our retirement (or at least mine). 9.4 Billion on Health.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Globa...?showYear=2008