# Orders of magnitude for the layman **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 1, 2003, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049 "2003-02-01T04:50:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049/1 "2003-02-01T04:50:03Z")
I turn to our brilliant Dopers to help me out with an aspect of my job. I’m trying to figure out how to express certain numbers of people in a way that a layman can wrap his head around easily. For example take the following approximations: A large stadium holds 100,000 people New Years Eve in Times Square attracts 500,000 NYC has a population of 8 million NYS has 19 million USA has 280 million The world has 6 billion The total number of people that have ever lived is 100 billion. Any better ways of conceptualizing numbers from a hundred to a trillion? I’d rather have it be a mass of people in one place than something vague, like the number of people who watch _Joe Millionaire_. Also, anything that is New York City-based gets bonus points. And I’ll give extra credit to anyone who can describe numbers greater than a trillion for anyone lacking expertise in atomic particles. For example, the number of stars in the universe is estimated to be around 10[sup]21[/sup] or so. Any and all help is appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Slip\_Mahoney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@Slip\_Mahoney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slip_Mahoney)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049/2 "2003-02-01T05:05:16Z")
I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, but my Dad taught me to understand the difference between a million, a billion and a trillion like this: A million seconds is about 11 days. A billion seconds is about 31 years. And a trillion seconds ago, that is, 310 thousand years ago, there was no TV. Well, I was only 7 years old. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049/3 "2003-02-01T05:32:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alphagene \* > Also, anything that is New York City-based gets bonus points. The Union Square subway station has one trillion rats. ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049/4 "2003-02-01T06:38:40Z")
Actually, a trillion seconds is 31,546years. A trillion minutes is ~1.9 million years. One way (that might appeal to NY’ers) is to estimate is how much snow would you have if a trillion snowflakes fell. You must assume a size for a snowflake of course, we"ll say a snowfalke is roughly a sphere with a radius of 0.5 mm, OK? then: 1 trillion snowflakes is then 523,598,333 cm[sup]3[/sup] using 0.061 in[sup]3[/sup] per cubic mm gives 31,939,498 in[sup]3[/sup] divide by 144 (cubic inches in a cubic foot) to get 221,802 ft[sup]3[/sup] So that would be a foot of snow on a 470 by 470 foot area. Or, everyone loves money, right? $1 trillion is $125,000 for each of the 8 million New Yorkers. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049/5 "2003-02-01T07:45:22Z")
The best analogy I have heard for a googoolplex (10^(10^100)) is that if you had a magical window that opened up to a different, random universe each time, it would take roughly a googoolplex years of opening the window before you saw a universe which was exactly like our own in every detail, assuming you open the window once every second or so. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049/6 "2003-02-01T11:24:24Z")
You can view 1000 dots on a page very easily. You can also view 1,000,000 if the page is big and of high printing quality. A thick book of such pages holds 1,000,000,000 dots. Note that among the English speaking people the meanings of million, billion and trillion differ - I think American billion = 1,000,000,000 = English trillion. Yesterday a bookkeeper asked me to tell them what $11,110,550.00 was bu writing it and showing me the page - she didn’t know how to say it and didn’t know it was “about eleven million dollars” (we’re American). ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/orders-of-magnitude-for-the-layman/152049/7 "2003-02-01T13:15:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Napier \* > \*\*Note that among the English speaking people the meanings of million, billion and trillion differ - I think American billion = 1,000,000,000 = English trillion. > \*\* It used to be that an English billion was 1,000,000,000,000. Nowadays, the American billion seems to have taken over. I don’t know what an English trillion was - presumably add six more zeroes.