kwh@philabs.UUCP (Kevin Haberern) (11/21/84)
It seems as if the word "billion" is used now more then it has ever been used in the past. Dr. Carl Sagan has made the saying "billions and bilions of stars" famous. President Regan has us all concerned as to where he will get the "billions" needed to slow the national debt growth. Johnny Carson claims that he pays "billions" in alimony. I have even heard " if I've told you once I've told you a "billion" times, I don't exaggerate." The list of uses of the word "billion" goes on and on. The number "one billion" means the number one followed by nine zeroes. This suits the mathematicians just fine, but I find it difficult to deal with such a definition when it comes to money, stars, etc.... In my attempts to really get aquainted with this "billion", I have found that the best way is to relate it to numbers that I can understand . For example, if I had one billion dollars worth of quarters, how many Empire State buildings could I fill ( if any)? Another one could be; if I had a billion Volkswagons and I parked them end to end, how far would the line of cars go? So far, I have been unable to come up with a real satisfactory relationship between the number "billion" and reality. If there is anyone that has an answer to my problem, I would appreciate a response.
lffast@watrose.UUCP (lffast) (11/22/84)
If you estimate an volkswagen at 10 feet long, it takes about 500 to reach 1 mile. This makes a billion of them 1,000,000,000 / 500 or 2,000,000 miles long. 2 million miles is 8 round trips to the moon or the distance travelled in an 8 day shuttle flight. Larry Fast Opinions expressed here are mine (But I'll never admit it).
gunsch@uiucdcs.UUCP (11/23/84)
<- give, support the helpless victim of computer errorr
I think most people don't know how many a billion, or even a
million, is. When you see it written down, what's two or three
more zeros at the end. It is really hard to comprehend how much
a billion is.
I remember (long, long time ago) when I was young ...
My brother tended to exaggerate a bit, well, maybe more then just
a bit. In an attempt to curve my brother's habit, my Mother told
him that the next time he said `thousands' when he meant five or
six she would make him count to whatever number he exaggerated
by. Next time he said `millions', so she was going to make him
count to 1,000,000, on paper. He had to write one million tal-
lies (every fifth tally crosses the first four forming groups of
five). To make it easy for her to count, he had to put so may
tallies per line, so many lines per page. Well, after about an
hour and a half of this punishment my brother was up to somewhere
around 15,000 and was having visions of himself growing old
counting to 1,000,000, and my Mother relented. To this day, my
brother is very careful about exaggerating, if he says something
happened 150 times I draw a lower bound at about 140.
paul gunsch {the_world}!pur-ee!uiucdcs!gunsch
the reason computer chips are so small
is that computes eat so littlelrd@drusd.UUCP (DuBroffLR) (11/26/84)
"... if I had a billion Volkswagons and I parked them end to end, how far would the line of cars go? "If there is anyone that has an answer to my problem, I would appreciate a response." I'm not sure how far a billion Volkswagons parked end to end would stretch, but one thing is certain; if you did manage to get all these VWs lined up, some damn fool would pull out and try to pass!
jim@haring.UUCP (11/28/84)
Beware, a billion is not the same everywhere, in Britain and The Netherlands at least, it is 'one million millions', not 'one thousand millions'. Jim McKie Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Amsterdam mcvax!jim
moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (11/28/84)
On this subject, I can only repeat the words of Bill Cosby:
God will not let you into Heaven if you drift into the [San
Francisco] bay in a Volkswagon.
Lord, let my transmission go!
"Nun-beating? Good Lord, man, I can't condone THAT!"
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
UUCP:
{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,sdcsvax,tektronix,utcsrgv}!uw-beaver \
{allegra,gatech!sb1,hplabs!lbl-csam,decwrl!sun,ssc-vax} -- !fluke!moriarty
ARPA:
fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPAcanopus@amdahl.UUCP (Flaming Asteroid) (11/28/84)
> > "... if I had a billion Volkswagons and I parked them > end to end, how far would the line of cars go? > > "If there is anyone that has an answer to my problem, I would appreciate a response." Assuming a VW of 14 feet in length from bumper to bumper, roughly 2,651,515.1 miles, which is about eleven times farther than the Moon, or about one-tenth the distance to Venus at its closest approach, or one ten-millionth the distance to the nearest star, or .... -- Frank Dibbell (408-746-6493) ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,nsc}!amdahl!canopus [The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of my employer, or myself, for that matter]
gm@trsvax.UUCP (11/30/84)
"If you took one million McDonald's hamburgers and piled them on top of one another, you would have a stack over ONE FOOT TALL!!" -- Johnny Carson (commenting on the 50 billionth McDonald's customer)
act@pur-phy.UUCP (Alex C. Tselis) (12/03/84)
> The number "one billion" means the number one followed by nine zeroes. This > suits the mathematicians just fine, but I find it difficult to deal with such > a definition when it comes to money, stars, etc.... In my attempts to really > get aquainted with this "billion", I have found that the best way is to relate > it to numbers that I can understand . For example, if I had one billion > dollars worth of quarters, how many Empire State buildings could I fill ( if > any)? Another one could be; if I had a billion Volkswagons and I parked them > end to end, how far would the line of cars go? I just got out four quarters, and the form a stack .65 cm high. A billion of them would form a stack 1.62 x 10**8 cm high. This is 4,039 miles. I'm sure that this can be related to.