# "One Million", the book **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 26, 2024, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-million-the-book/996694 "2024-01-26T18:45:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-million-the-book/996694/1 "2024-01-26T18:45:48Z")
So as not to get lost in the How many days have you been alive, thread. I used to have a book simply titled, “One Million”. It consisted of pages printed with a matrix of dots and they totaled one million. I think the start number on each page was listed. I forget how many dots were on each page but it was a typical sized book, so maybe 5000 (200 pages)? If so, then 100 years ago was only 7 pages. The book treated each dot as a day and had a notation for every interesting event. Most of recorded history is in the past million days (to about 750 BC). It was humbling to see that most anything I could think of was in the very couple of dozen pages. You could leaf through it, leaf, leaf, leaf, then: “Columbus discovers” America. Leaf, leaf, leaf leaf, “The Middle Ages begins”. I can’t find a record of this book but I’m not book-search-savy. EDIT, Whoot, I found it! [https://www.amazon.com/One-Million-Hendrik-Hertzberg/dp/0810978458](https://www.amazon.com/One-Million-Hendrik-Hertzberg/dp/0810978458) ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-million-the-book/996694/2 "2024-01-26T18:51:58Z")
Interesting book. It reminds me of one of my favorite facts: If you started counting at a rate of one number per second, you would reach one million in 12 days. Reaching a billion would take you almost 32 _years_. mmm ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-million-the-book/996694/3 "2024-01-26T18:55:46Z")
I took this out of my high school library (and returned it on time) back in the '70s and have recently been wondering about it. Thanks for posting that. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-million-the-book/996694/4 "2024-01-26T19:05:53Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > I took this out of my high school library (and returned it on time) back in the '70s Did you photocopy the relevant pages? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-million-the-book/996694/5 "2024-01-26T22:40:11Z")
My son would _love_ this. ---
**Author:** ![moes\_lotion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@moes\_lotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moes_lotion)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2024, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-million-the-book/996694/6 "2024-01-27T05:52:17Z")
Only tangentially related, but one of my university textbooks, “The Calculus with Analytic Geometry, 4th Edition” by Louis Leithold had, on the front and back cover, and at the start of each chapter, details from a series of paintings by the artist Roman Opałka titled “1965 / 1 – ∞”. He started the series in 1965 painting tiny numbers beginning with 1 then 2 and and proceeding in sequence using white paint on a black background. His canvases were made to be the size of the door to his studio. He kept going with the project until shortly before his death in 2011 and apparently reached 5,607,249. > **[Roman Opałka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Opa%C5%82ka)** > > Roman Opałka (Polish: \[ˈrɔman ɔˈpawka\]; 27 August 1931 – 6 August 2011) was a French-born Polish painter, whose works are mostly associated with conceptual art. > Opałka was born on 27 August 1931 in Abbeville-Saint-Lucien, France, to Polish parents. The family returned to Poland in 1946 and Opałka studied lithography at a graphics school before enrolling in the School of Art and Design in Łódź. He later earned a degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He moved back to France in 1977. Opał...