What really is a million, or a billion? My friend Pat Singleton put this into perspective for me in terms I could really grasp.
- 1 million seconds equal 11 and 1/2 days.
- 1 billion seconds equal 31 and 3/4 years.
- 1 trillion seconds equal 31,710 years.
Thanks for stopping in for the million/billion/trillion answer. If you’re interested in rural business, feel free to check out some of our best stuff:
- What businesses would work in a small town? Filling empty buildings
- How to set retail prices and markups
- The 7 Most Common Weaknesses of Local Shops And what we’re all going to do about them
- Seasonal business: How to beat the annual “no bookings!” panic - August 8, 2022
- Recession? Practical steps from 3 international peers - August 3, 2022
- Reaching “at risk” kids for local jobs - July 15, 2022
- 3 Major factors in rural remote work: incentives, flexible workspaces, and a sense of community - June 6, 2022
- How to recruit new residents, remote workers, or remote entrepreneurs - June 2, 2022
- How cooperatives improve small town economies - May 8, 2022
- Metaverse business idea: virtual world tour guide - April 15, 2022
- Make extra money from extra workspace: co-working and 3rd workplaces in small towns - March 28, 2022
- Trade show booth design trend: hand drawn visuals - March 21, 2022
- New business sign design? Don’t use cursive script - February 14, 2022
This post has been one of our most popular. I’m not sure why so many people search for “million vs. billion”. I hope Pat’s example is helpful in picturing the huge size of these numbers.
You may also be interested in the differences in the American and European definitions of million, billion and trillion. The best one I found is Names for Large Numbers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In Pat’s example:
* million = 1,000,000
* billion = 1,000,000,000
* trillion = 1,000,000,000,000
Another way to visualize these mind-boggling numbers is through using pennies, at The MegaPenny Project.
It’s probably popular due to the difference between the imperial (US) and metric (rest of world) naming conventions – that’s what landed me here :)
Yes, Anon, that’s certainly it. See the link to Names for Large Numbers in the first comment.
James Niskala let me know by email how he ended up here:
“Just wanted to say that what drew me to this article was a desire to illustrate how incredibly large the national debt has become (now over 20 trillion)
Most people know it’s out of hand, but even they don’t really grasp what phenomenal amounts we are talking about.
Thank you so very much.”