That's what you get for not using the metric system.
As you realized in your post a little later, it has nothing to do with the metric system, and if anything in this the US is more "metric" if you will, then the EU.
How many millions are in a trillion?
11–20 of 35 posts
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#12Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#13Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#14I saw some political polling a couple years ago-- people can't really conceptualize numbers this large. A slight majority of the poll actually thought a million dollars was more than a billion. People have a handle on the size of a million bucks because that amount occurs in regular life-- the price of a luxury home, etc. I think one of the reasons there isn't much outrage at the US government's $1.8 trillion deficit this year is that it is so large it doesn't have any meaning.
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#15What a trillion dollars looks like: http://www.zee.me/blog/2009/03/what-does-one-trillion-dollar...
Thank you for this awesome, insightful contribution to the conversation... not.
Edit: seriously, do we upvote people for posting reddit-like links to vaguely related non-information now?
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#16Part of the problem is trillion sounds just like billion. Your brain hears it and thinks "way bigger than a million", and stops calculating right there. I imagine most people would tell you a "zillion" is a million millions, though.
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#17What a trillion dollars looks like: http://www.zee.me/blog/2009/03/what-does-one-trillion-dollar...
Thank you for this awesome, insightful contribution to the conversation... not. Edit: seriously, do we upvote people for posting reddit-like links to vaguely related non-information now?
The graphic has done the rounds in many, many places, but it did generate 46 points and 35 comments here a few months back without an ad redditum comment.
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#18Are you somewhat happy to know that you are in the "elite", the top 21% of people who actually understand the world a bit ?
Or are you sad at the rest ? They have no clue. Or they are plain wrong and don't even know it.
I wonder if that metric could be applied to other topics like religion, government spending, ...
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#19I've heard the idea bandied about that we should just drop the ambiguous names (w.r.t., the whole long/short scale thing) and start using scientific notation. It is much more obvious that 10^12/10^6 = 10^6
I remember the tale of a programmer talking to his manager. When his manager asked how close he was to completion the programmer said that if there were 10^6 things to do, they had done 10^3.
The manager said "Great! We're halfway there!"
I'm not sure scientific notation would "solve the problem".
Re: How many millions are in a trillion?
#20I saw some political polling a couple years ago-- people can't really conceptualize numbers this large. A slight majority of the poll actually thought a million dollars was more than a billion. People have a handle on the size of a million bucks because that amount occurs in regular life-- the price of a luxury home, etc. I think one of the reasons there isn't much outrage at the US government's $1.8 trillion deficit…
Yes. Stating the deficit per capita might put it in a better perspective for most people (e.g. me).