How Much Is One Trillion Gallons of Beer?
Posted: Saturday, February 14, 2009
by Marty RicKard
I was doing a little figuring about how difficult it is to fathom the big figures they toss around in Washington . Obama's budget proposals range from one trillion to two trillion dollars. That means nothing to most people.
It might help to look at it this way.
One million seconds is 11.5 days. A billion seconds is 32 years. One trillion seconds is 32,000 years. That's even hard to visualize.
If someone gave you $1 million EVERY DAY since Jesus was born, to date, you would have received only three-quarters of a trillion dollars.
One trillion stacked dollar bills would be almost 70,000 miles high.
If you and your ancestors spent $86,000 every day, it would take 32,000 years to spend $1 trillion.
Most of my friends will find the following example more familiar and easier to comprehend:
One million ounces is 83 thousand beers. One billion ounces is 8 million beers. One trillion ounces is 83 million beers.
Or if you buy your beer by the one-gallon pitcher, One million ounces is 7812 pitchers, One billion ounces is almost 8 million pitchers. One trillion ounces would be about 8 billion pitchers of beer
Or, are you ready, more than 800,000, of those big, long 18-wheel oil tanker trucks you pass on the interstate everyday. Stop for a second and think of it, eight hundred thousand (800,000) tanker trucks would be required to hold a trillion pitchers of beer.
Maybe that will help put it in the proper perspective.
1,000 thousand
1,000,000 million
1,000,000,000 billion
1,000,000,000,000 trillion
Oh, but according to Senator Charles Schumer, New York Democrat, the public doesn't care about money. "They don't care about those little porky projects" that only amount to a few million dollars, he said recently on national TV.
MARTY RICKARD BIO
Marty RicKard attended William Penn College , Iowa State University and University of Southern Mississippi , from which he holds a BS degree in journalism and photojournalism. He also has a Masters Degree in photography. Marty was a technical writer for White Motor Company, and has worked for the Charles City Press, Mason City Globe-Gazette, and Davenport Times-Democrat. He owned New Sharon Star, where he was twice named Iowa Master Columnist. For ten years, Marty's regular column appeared in the Professional Photographer magazine. He has been published in many other magazines, including Golf Digest, Resource Magazine, Picture, Range Finder, and Darkroom. In addition to his writing credits, Marty has won numerous photography awards, has lectured in 48 states, and has traveled internationally as lecturer, and judge. He was one of thirty from the U.S. to participate in the first cultural exchange with China in 1986. He was a regular columnist for Lens Magazine, and is full-time writer of fiction and poetry. He has published three books.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Interesting article, and goes to show how bad we are at really understanding huge numbers - but your examples help a lot!
When I saw the diagram someone sent on the internet about a trillion dollars in correlation to one dollar it was amazing. It made comprehension real easy.Good article.Thanks for sharing.Linda D
Waiting for a new article written by you. I tried getting in touch with you today, using the phone number you have posted on-line. I got your voice mail. Please use the contact info next to my name, and drop me an email. It's important that I get in touch with you. I could use your expertise. Charles "Catfish" Pole
Yes, pathetic! It's close to a cubic mile of beer. We're talking several trillion now, aren't we?
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