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From: bcx@well.UUCP (Bryan Costales)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: How Big Is A Trillion?
Message-ID: <126@well.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Aug-85 01:57:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.126
Posted: Mon Aug  5 01:57:33 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Aug-85 11:33:28 EDT
Reply-To: bcx@well.UUCP (Bryan Costales)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 21
Keywords: defense money spending

In the past 6 years the United States has spent over one trillion dollars
on defense. Unfortunately, the average person has little concept of how large
an ammount of money that really is. To illustrate how big a trillion really
is, let me ask you some questions:

1. If a doctor told you that you only had a trillion seconds left to live, how
long do you suppose that would be?

2. If a cubic inch of sand contains say 100 grains along each edge, for
1000000 grains total, how much space would a trillion grains occupy?

3. If you had a trillion dollars to spend the day Christ was born, and managed
to spend $1,000,000.00 a day from then till now, how much would you have left?

Remember that a trillion is a million million. And we spend a trillion dollars
on "defense" in just 6 years! -- How much would it cost to pay $1,000.00 to
each and every man, woman and child in the Soviet Union?

-- 
	Bryan Costales
	( ...!dual!ptsfa!ski!eeg!bcx ...!ptsfa!well!bcx)