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[Poll]

How long...?

1380 days (about 4 years)

0% (0)

6900 days (about 20 years)

5% (1)

13,800 days (about 40 years)

5% (1)

69,000 days (about 200 years)

11% (2)

138,000 days (about 400 years)

5% (1)

690,000 days (about 2000 years)

52% (9)

1,380,000 days (about 4000 years)

5% (1)

I don't know.

11% (2)

Total Votes : 17

(last vote on : 9/18/2010 6:55:56 PM)
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How long...? - 9/16/2010 2:08:27 PM

hertz

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We've all gotten quite used to talking about deficits and figures like a million, a billion, a trillion and so on. These numbers just trip off the tongue - they seem almost natural now. But what do these figures actually mean?

For example, just how many days is one million minutes?

Would it surprise you to know that one million minutes works out at about 690 days - almost 2 years?

OK - now make an estimate of how long a billion minutes comes to, and vote for the figure you think is closest. Try to avoid cheating by looking it up, and leave your calculator to one side. Just use a bit of intuition. Oh, and let's use the US definition of a billion - don't look it up!

A billion minutes is...

Answer is here

Post #: 1

RE: How long...? - 9/16/2010 2:30:50 PM

Twoshoes

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Pfft, took me 15 sec to answer that because I trusted you.
And I trusted you because if I ended up being wrong I could make fun of your post.

Win-Win situation.

(in reply to hertz)

Post #: 2

RE: How long...? - 9/17/2010 1:30:20 PM

hertz

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Joined: 8/7/2010
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SPOILER AHEAD...

Maybe it's just me, but I find myself kind of impressed by the way these figures seem immune to intuition, although obviously they are easily calculated. For example, going up another order of magnitude, a Trillion minutes comes to this number of years.

Putting this all into context, you could have built up a personal deficit of a million dollars by giving away a dollar a minute from the start of August 2008. If you'd stayed awake, day and night, just handing the money away, that's how long it would take.

You could have built up a personal deficit of a billion dollars by starting to give away a dollar a minute at about the birth of our lord Jesus, who died for our sins, God bless him.

You could have built up a personal deficit of a trillion dollars by starting to give away a dollar a minute at about the time primitive man invented fire.

Or, you could build up a debt of 13.4 trillion dollars just by being the US. You could be increasing that debt at the rate of 4.15 billion dollars per day by simply living beyond your means. You could spend 9 billion dollars per month on the Iraq war, with an initial outlay of 13 billion on top...

Did you know, when you look up at the night sky, the most you will see will be maybe 2,500 stars. If you could see every star visible, you'd still only be looking at 8,000 - no-where near even just a million.

Do you see what I am getting at?

The US debt is the equivalent of giving away 13 dollars, every minute, day and night, for almost 2 million years.

I just find these numbers, the sheer scale of them, astounding. They are so easy to say, but to get a real grasp on what they actually mean is not so easy.

Or is it just me?

< Message edited by hertz -- 9/17/2010 1:32:22 PM >

(in reply to Twoshoes)

Post #: 3

RE: How long...? - 9/17/2010 4:05:49 PM

gungadin09

Posts: 3232
Joined: 3/19/2010
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This is what i'm talking about when i say sometimes i just HAVE to sound smart. 1 billion is 1,000 times a million. Knowing that, the math is easy. i HAD to say that. i couldn't stop myself. Sometimes i annoy even myself. Somebody shoot me.

pam

P.S.- It might increase human interest if you phrased the question differently. If a Master received blowjobs from a billion slaves, and each blowjob took 1 minute, how many minutes would that be?

< Message edited by gungadin09 -- 9/17/2010 4:12:50 PM >

(in reply to hertz)

Post #: 4

RE: How long...? - 9/17/2010 4:07:42 PM

VaguelyCurious

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Joined: 12/2/2009
From: United Kingdom
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quote:

ORIGINAL: hertz

Or is it just me?

I think it's just you, although I'm part way through a physics degree so I'm perhaps not the best person to ask-I'm used to numbers.

I didn't have to think about the answer-if a million minutes is two years then an american billion minutes will be two thousand years...

ETA: I'm a bit worried by the people who chose 138x10^whatever, though. Isn't it obvious that the answer has to be the first number you gave times a multiple of ten?

< Message edited by VaguelyCurious -- 9/17/2010 4:10:45 PM >

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(in reply to hertz)

Post #: 5

RE: How long...? - 9/17/2010 6:11:55 PM

pogo4pres

Posts: 593
Joined: 1/14/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: hertz

We've all gotten quite used to talking about deficits and figures like a million, a billion, a trillion and so on. These numbers just trip off the tongue - they seem almost natural now. But what do these figures actually mean?

For example, just how many days is one million minutes?

Would it surprise you to know that one million minutes works out at about 690 days - almost 2 years?

OK - now make an estimate of how long a billion minutes comes to, and vote for the figure you think is closest. Try to avoid cheating by looking it up, and leave your calculator to one side. Just use a bit of intuition. Oh, and let's use the US definition of a billion - don't look it up!

A billion minutes is...

Answer is here

Why didn't you just go for a trillion. FYI one trillion SECONDS, (NOT MINUTES) = 31,688 YEARS. So in actuality your billion minutes are pretty meaningless when compared to the number 1,000,000,000,000

Statistically,
Some Knucklehead in NJ

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(in reply to hertz)

Post #: 6

RE: How long...? - 9/17/2010 7:14:18 PM

Termyn8or

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I saw a billboard on the highway one time. It was for a cellphone with the "Teen Plan" which was 43,000 minutes a month. I guess the average extra 200 minutes were to change the battery.

Just saying. I understand though. They say a murder is committed every so many seconds, but people cannot grasp just how many people there are. Not only do most not have a conception of large numbers, with or without the ability to understand exponents, they are unable to grasp ratios. That is why so many play the lottery, which is totally a sucker bet. And they won't stop anyway.

Woman in the store for example, almost every day. Buys a pack of hotdogs, a bunch of candy and those chemical drinks that'll eat the floor out of your car if you spill it. Total $11.47 (on food stamps no less). Then walks over to the lottery window and lays down $30 for tickets.

It is not getting better, kids in school today have no conception of numbers for the most part, large or small, but they know all about the mating habits of some insect in bumfucked Egypt somewhere.

And I don't know how long it will be, but one day they will add a digit to the national debt clock. In this country a billion is a thousand million and a trillion is a thousand billion. Even if they have the capacity to view the last five digits in compare to their personal finances, they have little concept of what the most significant digits mean. They are simply so foreign that they are beyond comprehension, and therefore, attention.

For those not hep to it I'll sum it up - WE ARE FUCKED.

T

(in reply to hertz)

Post #: 7

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 2:01:06 AM

hertz

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@ Termyn8or ...

Exactly. The point is that unless you have a reasonable grasp of mathematics, the numbers are just beyond comprehension. A million, a billion, a trillion - these just sound like three numbers which are each somewhat bigger than the previous number (which of course they are, but with a twist). These are numbers we hear every day in relation to national debt, corporate net worth and so on, but, for the average person, they are pretty well meaningless.

quote:

ETA: I'm a bit worried by the people who chose 138x10^whatever, though. Isn't it obvious that the answer has to be the first number you gave times a multiple of ten?

I'm not convinced it is obvious. Most people, given a piece of paper and access to the internet and a calculator will, eventually, reach the correct answer. As you suggest, it isn't exactly difficult - it's effectively about adding zeroes. But (and this is the part which you might not grasp because you clearly have a way above average grasp on maths), what those extra zeroes mean, for most people, defies comprehension. And the fact that it is about zeroes is not really implied in the name of the number. For many years it was even possible that a billion might be either of two possible numbers (I think that's all been sorted now).

As an aside, I remember reading once that it is difficult for most people to visualise what 8 actually means, let alone a number with six zeroes in it (try it - close your eyes and visualise a person. Now add another person, and another... At some point you will need to count them to keep them in place). I guess that's why counting and numbers were invented - we can't cope with large quantities of objects without having some sort of system to translate the reality of the objects into something more understandable. And that works well for human scale quantities of objects: I can't visualise the difference between 100 and 110 (two groups of people, one containing 100 and the other containing 110 look pretty much identical), but I can easily grasp that 110 is ten more than 100. But at some point it all seems to break down. I find it really hard to grasp the sheer enormity of the difference between a million and a billion, even though I can see the zeroes, without going back the other way and trying to make it into something 'real'.

To use Termyn8or's example, the odds of winning the main prize in the lottery in the UK is about 1 in 14 million. People dutifully go off and buy a ticket every week, not considering that:

quote:

...your chances of dying in an airplane crash? A one-year risk of one in 400,000 and one in 5,000 lifetime risk. What about walking across the street? A one-year risk of one in 48,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 625. Drowning? A one-year risk of one in 88,000 and a one in 1100 lifetime risk. In a fire? About the same risk as drowning. Murder? A one-year risk of one in 16,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 210. What about falling? Essentially the same as being murdered. And the proverbial being struck by lightning? A one-year risk of one in 6.2 million and a lifetime risk of one in 80,000. And what is the risk that you will die of a catastrophic asteroid strike? In 1994, astronomers calculated that the chance was one in 20,000. However, as they've gathered more data on the orbits of near earth objects, the lifetime risk has been reduced to 1 in 200,000 or more.
http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized

The chances of getting struck by lightning or hit by an asteroid look high in comparison with the chances of winning the lottery. But do we protect ourselves against lightning or asteroids? Hell, no, because that would be crazy, and yet we still go out and buy lottery tickets. And we still look at a national debt figure which is just unbelievably, incomprehensibly huge, and call it 13 Trillion dollars without really getting what that means... This isn't so much about the maths - it's about our understanding of what the maths might mean, and what numbers actually represent.

I'm not a mathematician, so I still find this stuff mind-blowingly amazing and awe-inspiring...

(in reply to Termyn8or)

Post #: 8

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 2:09:12 AM

GreedyTop

Posts: 52100
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Savannah, GA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious

quote:

ORIGINAL: hertz

Or is it just me?

I think it's just you, although I'm part way through a physics degree so I'm perhaps not the best person to ask-I'm used to numbers.

I didn't have to think about the answer-if a million minutes is two years then an american billion minutes will be two thousand years...

ETA: I'm a bit worried by the people who chose 138x10^whatever, though. Isn't it obvious that the answer has to be the first number you gave times a multiple of ten?

Cute AND brainy!!

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(in reply to VaguelyCurious)

Post #: 9

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 6:34:18 AM

DesFIP

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Visualizing a million anything is very difficult. There's an elementary school near here that decided to collect a million pull tabs from soda cans. It won't take up that much space to display when they finally finish. They've been at it for years and still collecting. I think they guessed it would take over ten years considering how large the school is.

However, as to the rest of this thread, why is it here instead of P & R where it belongs?

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Post #: 10

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 7:24:43 AM

Termyn8or

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FR

Let's try to assist in the visualisation here as I open calculator (which I figured out how to put in my start menu HAHA)

Let's say $13 trillion. Should be close soon. Let's just suppose that the holders of our notes are getting 1% per annum. This is a low figure, typically more like what they give the sheeple in a bank account, but let's say our creditors are the generous type and settle for 1%. People can generally concieve 1% because it only deals with a hundredth part. So in nterest alone, at best we must pay one hundredth each year without reducing the principal at all. Now back to the million, billion and trillion.

One tenth of a $13 trillion is of course $1.3 trillion. To simplify for the mathematically challenged, that is $1,300 billion, and one tenth of that is $130 billion. So we, at the very best are paying $130 billion per year to rent the money we (the gov that is) use(s). And that is without amortizing one thin dime of it, unlike a normal loan where the principal goes down.

I have decided not to use calculator, so here goes. Let's go by semi-current estimates of 300 million people in the US. Round it off and call it a third of a billion. OK, for mental math expediency, a billion people would pay $130 per year, every year for life. So naturally a third of that in population would pay $390 per year, for life.

Doesn't sound like much does it ? Well, let's take a closer look. At least one third of the people in this country do not pay income taxes. I consider that a conservative estimate, but for now it will suffice. This would include those on SS or disbility, welfare and who knows what else. Then there is the contingent of people who avoid paying taxes, some by a certain little known legal procedure and others by avoiding a paper trail. Then there are the working poor who generally qualify for what is known as the earned income credit on a tax return, some of whom actually get a refund that is more than they paid in all year. This should easily bring it down to one half of the people in this country paying no tax, which would bring the figure to double the figure, $780 per year.

If your taxable income is about $7,700 in 2009 you pay about that amount, actually $778. Now remember if you are single the personal exemption is around $6,000, so those making less than about $15,000 per year are not paying the $780. I have not even factored in earned income credit, and remember we are talking about a single person. Those with dependents will earn alot more before reaching the $780 share of this interest alone ! Now I can't estimate how many people are working under potential in this economy but I bet it is a significant portion. I hear of those with college degrees working in fast food restaurants and such. Even if I could estimate it, the number is no doubt climbing at an alarming rate.

Remember putting things in perspective ? This all but a drop in the bucket so to speak. Consider the cost of running the federal government. Of course they are borrowing more money, they don't have any. And the more they print the more it is devalued, another wolf at the door. Soon our instruments of credit will no longer be acceptable becaue the interest is already resulting in a net loss due to the constant devaluation of the dollar.

Unhappy yet ? If not, think about what happens when it all comes to a grinding halt. It must. My considered opinion is that we should have defaulted right after the second world war, actually even earlier. There should have been nothing during the last depression, the hardship would be alot less severe because at the time we still had the means of production to climb out of the hole. Now we do not. The choices are either nobody will loan us any more money, or default on the current debt and nobody will oan us any more money. End result is the same.

Call me a doomsayer all you want but I will rebut with this. If a hurricane is coming and is for sure going to demolish my house and all my worldly possesions, I would rather know about it and have time to gather up what is important to me and go to a safer area before it hits. Wouldn't you ?

T

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Post #: 11

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 8:49:53 AM

hertz

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There's some imagery here which relates to the theme in a fascinating way:

http://blame.ca/?p=85

Antares, The last star in the sequence, is a red super-giant star 500 times the size of the sun. The diameter of the sun is about 885,000 miles, which is pretty damn big. But the diameter of Antares is 500,000,000 miles (500 million miles). The pictures in the link say it all.

But this is nothing. Look at this link: http://www.krysstal.com/scale.html

What is this? It makes me fearful even thinking about it. How can anyone get a firm mental grip on the idea that there are objects in our universe that are 14,000,000,000 light-years away? It's just madness.

I'd love to be able to put the US national debt into some sort of context with the size of the universe, but my maths just isn't up to it.

quote:

However, as to the rest of this thread, why is it here instead of P & R where it belongs?

My mistake, I think. I put it in Off Topic, but it got moved here before I had a chance to pull it into shape. I should have been more up-front about my intention with this thread to start with.

(in reply to Termyn8or)

Post #: 12

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 10:27:31 AM

hertz

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OK - apparently $10,560 in dollar bills laid end to end will make a line one mile long.

A trillion divided by 10,560 will give us a distance, in miles, for the US national debt.

That comes to about 96,000,000 miles, just a few million miles more than the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

It would take 2,650 years to walk that line (assuming you could).

(in reply to hertz)

Post #: 13

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 11:45:17 AM

MistressLavinia

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Wow, I read it all and have a major headache. Math isn't one of my strong points, I admire all the facts and figures, talent is in abundance, but honestly when I began reading my mind went into total whack mode.

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Post #: 14

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 2:59:00 PM

hertz

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Joined: 8/7/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: MistressLavinia

Wow, I read it all and have a major headache. Math isn't one of my strong points, I admire all the facts and figures, talent is in abundance, but honestly when I began reading my mind went into total whack mode.

That's good, as far as I am concerned. It means I'm not alone!

The math is interesting, as far as it goes, but to my mind it doesn't come anywhere near describing the awesome enormity of it all. Every time I look at the night sky I find myself swallowing hard. It's just too much to take in.

This picture, of a small patch of 'empty' night sky as viewed by the Hubble space telescope, speaks volumes...

http://www.enlightenedbeings.com/pix/Galaxies-Deep-Field.jpg

What you are looking at is a vast field of galaxies containing maybe as many as 500 billion, and up to maybe a trillion stars each. And these are just a few of the 170 billion or so galaxies we can see. Mind blowing...

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Post #: 15

RE: How long...? - 9/18/2010 6:22:23 PM

Termyn8or

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My familiarity with astrnomy was borne at a very early age. It served as fairly decent introduction to large numbers. Later, developing some electronic engineering skills, it came in handy and sort of brought it home for me. It's hard for most to imagine the gain of a circuit being a million, but it was commonplace for a long time.

A moving coil phonograph cartridge has a very low output, on the order of a few microvolts. It is so low that great steps must be taken to avoid noise pickup, and if someone keys the mike on a nearby CB radio, even without an illegal linear amp it can blow your speakers despite the best shielding. But these few microvolts are amplified to perhaps a hundred volts or even more.

Bels and decibels deal with these numbers effectively when it comes to analog electronics, and believe it or not in some applications the decibels have exponents.

Those without such exposure in this area will have trouble comprehending the national debt, and even I have trouble comprehending the vastness of the universe.

By the end of elementary school most students in Japan and Europe have some grasp of these concepts, in the US they know all about dinosaurs. Perhaps that is appropriate, because we are actually like dinosaurs now, facing possible extinction.

People are like that, living six people in a two bedroom and then having six kids, not to worry because they can get welfare.

Yeah right. Look where it got us. I haven't had any intoxicants in three weeks at least, and still advocate a 90% reduction in population. Surely people can understand what 90% means. If it means I am a prick, then I am a prick.

T

< Message edited by Termyn8or -- 9/18/2010 6:25:12 PM >

(in reply to hertz)

Post #: 16

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