Billion

A Billion is a BIG Number!

Good morning!.  Yesterday, as I was listening to the radio about current events in Washington DC, it struck me about politicians use the word 'billion' in such a casual manner.

So, I was thinking, do people really grasp how BIG this number is?  For you math geeks it is 10 to the 9^th power (or 9 zeros).  Can anyone really get your arms around that big of a number?  One ad agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective…

A billion grains of sand would fill one dump truck.

A billion seconds ago was 1981 (32 years).

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

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

1 billion centimeters is the distance from Chicago to Tokyo.

1 billion pennies stacked in a single pile would reach nearly 1,000 miles high (outer space is only 200+ miles above the Earth's surface).

Okay, speaking of money, if we go back to our friends in DC, they spend a billion of our tax dollars every 6 and ½ hours. 

Yes, a billion is still a BIG number!  And that is the bottom of our news on this Friday, October 04, 2013.  ###

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