How Big is a Billion?
off topic January 29th, 2008We’re hearing a lot about projects of a billion dollars or more these days. I got to thinking about just how big a billion is. Here’s a bit of perspective:
- If you received $1,000 a day, seven days a week, how long would it take to reach a billion? The answer is that it would take you 2,737 years, 10 months, and 7 days to reach a billion. But it would only take 2 years, 8 months, 26 days to reach a million.
- If you were to count to 1 million, it would take you about 11 days. To count to 1 billion would take about 30 years.
- If you received $1 every second for your entire life, and you just reached $1 billion dollars, when were you born? The answer is 1976 (a billion seconds is just over 31 years).
I’m going to be a little more in awe of the next billion-plus project that I get wind of. This is just a phenomenal amount of money, and there seem to be a good deal of billion dollar projects taking place these days.


Posts
January 29th, 2008 at 8:28 am
If you wondered what a billion (pennies) looks like … http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/nine.asp
January 29th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Billions, bah. Try trillions, that number you will hear more and more. Especially when more baby boomers retire.
What we owe on paper, IOUs, will dwarf our current Federal budget.
KoS
January 29th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I turned 1 billion seconds old when I was about 29.5. Did you adjust for the extra day every 4th year etc.?