How Big's a Billion?
The
next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual
manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your
tax money. That's because a billion is far more than a casual number.
A
billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a
good job of putting that figure into some perspective:
A
billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A
billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A
billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A
billion days ago no one walked on the earth on two feet.
A
billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government
is spending it.
Here
are three exercises to help you grasp just how big a billion is:
1. Louisiana Sen. Mary
Landrieu (D) has asked Congress for $250
billion to rebuild New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina in 2005. What if the money were paid directly to the people who were
victims of the hurricane in New Orleans, or lost a house there? Do these
division problems by hand (answers below):
A. If $250 billion is
distributed to each of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans, how much does each
person get?
B. If the $250 billion is
divided among the owners of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, how much is allocated
for each house?
2. Stack pennies and
measure them. How many pennies does it take to make an inch? How many in a
foot? A yard? Now figure out how tall a stack of one billion pennies would be.
3. They say there are
poisons in our drinking water that they can measure down to one part per
billion. So there may be one drop of toxic stuff in every one billion drops of
water. Now imagine an ocean that is one billion drops of water in area - 100
million drops wide and 100 million drops tall. You'll probably have to tape
together four pieces of graph paper to get this done. Chart out this huge
imaginary ocean on graph paper so that each square represents a million drops
of water. That'll be 100 squares across and 100 squares down. Now, in this
imaginary ocean, find the center, and mark a tiny dot to represent where that
one drop of poison might be.
(Answers to #1: A. $516,
528 B. $1,329,787 C. $2,066,012
)
By Susan Darst Williams • www.GoBigEd.com • After School Treats 036 • © 2006
