Archives by Month: February 2018
How long does it take to count to 1 million? 1 billion? 1 trillion?
My son likes large numbers (like septillion, googol and googolplex) and once asked me how long it would take to count to septillion (which is 1 followed by 24 zeros). I told him it would take longer than the age of the universe to do that, so he started working his way down. He asked me about counting to one million. I did a little math (assuming one number per second) and got about 11-12 days . . . but then thought, the large numbers (like 658,243) take more than a second to say.
Looked on the web a little to see if anyone else had done a more sophisticated calculation. Lots of calculations were like my own (assuming one number per second). Others acknowledge that it would take longer for large numbers and made assumptions about what that would be. But nothing definitive, so I thought I’d make one. This counting calculator is based on the number of syllables in every number and counts all the syllables you’d have to pronounce in order to count from one to one million (or other numbers).
How long does it take to count to 1 million? 1 billion? 1 trillion?
My son likes large numbers (like septillion, googol and googolplex) and once asked me how long it would take to count to septillion (which is 1 followed by 24 zeros). I told him it would take longer than the age of the universe to do that, so he started working his way down. He asked me about counting to one million. I did a little math (assuming one number per second) and got about 11-12 days . . . but then thought, the large numbers (like 658,243) take more than a second to say.
Looked on the web a little to see if anyone else had done a more sophisticated calculation. Lots of calculations were like my own (assuming one number per second). Others acknowledge that it would take longer for large numbers and made assumptions about what that would be. But nothing definitive, so I thought I’d make one. This counting calculator is based on the number of syllables in every number and counts all the syllables you’d have to pronounce in order to count from one to one million (or other numbers).
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