Subject: Billion
The next time you hear someone in
government rather casually use a
number that includes the word "billion", think
about it. A billion is a difficult number to
comprehend. One advertising agency did a
good job of putting that figure into perspective
in one of its releases:
* A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in
the Stone Age.
A billion days ago no creature walked the earth
on two feet.
And a billion dollars lasts 8 hours and 20
minutes at the rate our Government spends it.
* I find this one mind boggling
If you were to count a billion one dollar
bills by hand it would take you almost 34
years and 8-1/2 months.
Would you like to get a real feel for
the titanic numbers needed to
describe the Universe? Start counting!
Begin at one and count off one
number a second--"One, two,
three...." How long do you think it will
it take you to reach a million? A
billion? Counting this high takes time,
so you may want to read the answers
before you try:
- 1 Million: To count to 1 million will
take you about 11 days.
- 1 Billion: To count to 1 billion will
take you about 30 years.
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:
o 1562 hippopotamuses
o 52 blue whales
o 78 brachiosaurs
A billion credit cards laid end-to-end would
reach:
o 2.2 times around the earth
o Down the length of the Amazon River
13 times
o Over 938,000 US football fields
o More than 14 times the length of the
Great Wall of China

A billion credit cards stacked up would be as
high as:
o 120 Mt. Everests’
o 7,219 Great Pyramids
The chart, however accurate, doesn't
put the number -- one thousand
million -- into perspective. Here are
some attempts, collected from around
the Net:

If we wanted to pay down a billion
dollars of the US debt, paying one
dollar a second, it would take 31
years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46
minutes, and 40 seconds. To pay
off a trillion dollars of debt, at a
dollar a second, would take about
32,000 years.
 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).
 About a billion minutes ago, the
Roman Empire was in full swing.
(One billion minutes is about
1,900 years.)
 About a billion hours ago, we
were living in the Stone Age. (One
billion hours is about 114,000
years.)
 About a billion months ago,
dinosaurs walked the earth. (One
billion months is about 82 million
years.)
 A billion inches is 15,783 miles,
more than halfway around the
earth (circumference).
 The earth is about 8,000 miles
wide (diameter), and the sun is
about 800,000 miles wide, not
quite a million.
Number
of zeros
3
6
U.S. & scientific
community
thousand
million
9
billion
12
15
18
21
24
trillion
quadrillion
quintillion
sextillion
septillion
27
octillion
30
nonillion
33
decillion
Other
countries
thousand
million
1000 million
(1 milliard)
billion
1000 billion
trillion
1000 trillion
quadrillion
1000
quadrillion
quintillion
1000
quintillion
36
undecillion
sextillion
1000
39
duodecillion
sextillion
42
tredecillion
septillion
1000
45
quattuordecillion
septillion
48
quindecillion
octillion
1000
51
sexdecillion
octillion
54
septendecillion
nonillion
1000
57
octodecillion
nonillion
60
novemdecillion
decillion
1000
63
vigintillion
decillion
undecillion 66 - 120
vigintillion
303
centillion
600
centillion