What Is A Billion Anyway?
It is relatively easy to understand a quantity of a million… but when you get into billions and trillions, it’s hard to put things in perspective. A long-time accountant friend of mine passed these numbers along as a measuring stick to use:
- 1 million seconds = 12 days
- 1 billion seconds = 32 years
- 1 trillion seconds = 32,000 years
The chasm between a billion and a trillion is staggering.
When I look at this, it instantly reminds me of the book I just finished called The Black Swan; a book that talks about the impact of highly improbable events, and how the forecasting models used by modern-day economists neglect to consider the impact of such events; events that fall outside of what would be expected according to normal distribution curves (bell curves) of probability.
When they do occur these highly improbable events have a huge impact; like the difference between a billion and a trillion - yet most forecasting models act as if the odds of such events occurring are zero. It is naive risk-modeling like that has caused the implosion of enormous hedge funds and the near demise of our financial system.
The thought process and intellect of the author of The Black Swan is utterly amazing and the book instantly moved into my “top 5 books of all time list”. I think everyone involved in economics, finance, investing, politics or societal trends should be required to read it.
I posted a book review of The Black Swan, and if you’re a reader, check it out, and then put it at the top of your “to read next” list. It will forever change your thinking, in a good way.
What Is A Billion Anyway? originally appeared on About.com Money Over 55 on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 21:19:00.
Permalink | Comment | Email this