A billion is a difficult number to comprehend . . .

pek1

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I received this in an email from my cousin. Makes a person think twice about who to vote for next month.

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.

E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain...

let's take a look at New Orleans ...

It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.


Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking Congress for

250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number... what does it mean?

A. Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528.

B. Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

C. Or... if you are a family of four... your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D. C

< HELLO! >

Are all your calculators broken??

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago... and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt... We had the largest middle class in the world... and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?

Can you spell 'politicians!'

And I still have to press '1' for English.

Not to mention that I also have to take 'diversity' classes. For what?

What the heck happened?????

 
That reminds me of a couple threads I made related to bastard and trillion dollars. :)
 
If you look into history , you will see how great powers are born , expand and decline. Its a cycle. Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and British were no different.

-
 
If you look into history , you will see how great powers are born , expand and decline. Its a cycle. Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and British were no different.

-

It takes just a few bad apples to spoil the rest in the barrel. That is natural, too.
 
I get 31.7098 years for a billion seconds. A billion seconds ago was in approximately February of 1977.

A billion minutes ago was in the year 106 A.D. Jesus had been dead for quite some time.

A billion hours ago was 114,115.25 years. Humans were living in the Stone Age. Score one point for veracity.

A billion days ago, Australopithecus africanus was flourishing. They were clearly bipedal.

I just love e-mail factoids.
 
I get 31.7098 years for a billion seconds. A billion seconds ago was in approximately February of 1977.

A billion minutes ago was in the year 106 A.D. Jesus had been dead for quite some time.

A billion hours ago was 114,115.25 years. Humans were living in the Stone Age. Score one point for veracity.

A billion days ago, Australopithecus africanus was flourishing. They were clearly bipedal.

I just love e-mail factoids.

:laugh2::gpost:
 
Another way to look at it:

The International Space Station is the largest, most complex, and most expensive man-made project from a team of 17 countries. Cost of project since its start in 1985? ~150 billion dollars (Space Shuttle missions are accounted for in this cost)
NASA's contribution to this cost: ~53 billion dollars

Contribution of United States to Iraq War since 2003: 600 billion dollars

And I even used the MINIMUM for the Iraq War cost, and the MAXIMUM for the Space station cost.

What's the cost of the space station? - - MSNBC.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html
 
Curious... what is the word after billion and trillion? zillion? lol

quadrillion?
 
I get 31.7098 years for a billion seconds. A billion seconds ago was in approximately February of 1977.

A billion minutes ago was in the year 106 A.D. Jesus had been dead for quite some time.

A billion hours ago was 114,115.25 years. Humans were living in the Stone Age. Score one point for veracity.

A billion days ago, Australopithecus africanus was flourishing. They were clearly bipedal.

I just love e-mail factoids.

Brilliant. :giggle::ty::laugh2:
 
000,000,000,000,000,000 is the quadrillion you mentioned. :shock:
 
Where's the 1?

BTW dont throw these numbers at me, numbers make very little sense if any to me.

I just want our country to not descend itself into a bloodbath of war (which it already has), and end up so far in debt that it will take decades, if not a century or more to pay off that debt as interest continues to accrue over time.

If I were a loan officer, I would be turning down every loan uncle sam applied for no matter how good his motives are until he gets his act together and starts repaying these other loans.
 
I get 31.7098 years for a billion seconds. A billion seconds ago was in approximately February of 1977.

A billion minutes ago was in the year 106 A.D. Jesus had been dead for quite some time.

A billion hours ago was 114,115.25 years. Humans were living in the Stone Age. Score one point for veracity.

A billion days ago, Australopithecus africanus was flourishing. They were clearly bipedal.

I just love e-mail factoids.


the jesus bit wasnt far off, im still impressed , even more impressed that you did it too , in so doing to make it more accurate.
Hmm, now this got me thinking, just how can you be sure you are 100% accurate , how can you mathematicallh prove your calculation has the lowest 'margins for errors' bear in mind, im not a mathematician but i do appreciate some of the details they do go at lenght to argue just how correctly things are measured (similar can be said for carbon dating - im alittle leery of it myself)

but anyway
what i hope to ask you is, can you show us how you did the calculations?
i mean give us something like a 'blackboard view' and while so explain the process of converting it to 'real world, easy to understand eqavalent'
I'm really intriqued and I'm sure this is not going to be too boring right? Oh while at it, what computers (programs) or what calculators did you use? (yes i know there was like a trigonomentry calculators which surveyors used in the 1980's costed like thousands of dollars , not because calculators were 'rare' this particular Hewlet/parkard calculators were high-precision equipment, even the today's most feature-laden 'scientific calculators couldnt match, maybe faster but accurancy? i doubt it.
Looking forward to your reply
Cheers
 
but anyway
what i hope to ask you is, can you show us how you did the calculations?
i mean give us something like a 'blackboard view' and while so explain the process of converting it to 'real world, easy to understand eqavalent'
I'm really intriqued and I'm sure this is not going to be too boring right? Oh while at it, what computers (programs) or what calculators did you use? (yes
Cheers

It's just unit conversion. Really easy on a TI-86, which has the conversion factors built in. :cool2: It's just using the numbers we already know like 60sec = 1mn, 60mn = 1hr, etc. :D

Nice page I found: Fun with Dimensional Analysis
 
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