You were doing great until you denominated it in non-metric units (elephants). I get 1 000 000 t/5 t = 200 000 elephants. Thereafter, all the elephants are in error; your numbers correspond to millielephants (roughly, cats). But in dollar bills, 1 trillion is 1 Tg which is tera-fying (forgive the pun) You might consider denominating it in $100 bills, the largest unit of currency which is currently printed, as no one would actually carry a large amount in singles. It is an incremental $47 100 in debt for every man, woman, and child in addition to their own debts.
--- On Sat, 9/24/11, James Frysinger <[email protected]> wrote: From: James Frysinger <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:51137] A trillion dollars, give or take To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, September 24, 2011, 12:31 PM The numbers floating through the news these days boggles my mind, even though I have a strong background in science and engineering. Bruce Barrow remarked on something a few days ago that inspired my calculations below. Please tell me if I have made any math errors. Jim ** How large is a trillion dollars? A dollar bill is 15.6 cm or 0.156 m long. So 1 000 dollar bills end to end would be 156 m long, 1 000 000 dollar bills (a million dollars) would be 156 km long, 1 000 000 000 (a billion) would be 156 000 km long, and 1 000 000 000 000 (a trillion) would be 156 000 000 km long. The average distance from the Earth to the Sun (called "1 astronomical unit") is very close to 149 598 000 km, or to round it off that would be 150 000 000 km from Earth to Sun. So, a trillion dollar bills placed end to end would reach from the Earth to the Sun and then extend another 4 % or so. ** Could you carry a trillion dollars? A dollar bill (or a bill of any face value) weighs 1 g. So 1 000 dollar bills would weigh 1 kg, 1 000 000 dollar bills (a million) would weigh 1 metric ton (~2200 lb), 1 000 000 000 (a billion) would weigh 1 000 metric tons, and 1 000 000 000 000 (a trillion) would weigh 1 000 000 metric tons. The average size of an elephant is 5 metric tons. So a trillion dollar bills would weigh about the same as 200 000 000 elephants. The population of the U.S. is 310 000 000 people. So, turn 2/3 of all Americans into elephants and their weight would be that of a trillion dollar bills. ** How large is our national debt? The national debt is about 14.8 trillion dollars. That is equivalent to a line of dollar bills long enough to reach to the sun 15 times. Or from Saturn to the Sun and halfway back. If that were represented by dollar bills, it would weigh about the same amount as 3 billion elephants. The population of the world is 7 billion people. So, turn nearly half the people in the world into adult elephants and they would then weigh the same as our national debt in the form of dollar bills. -- James R. Frysinger 632 Stony Point Mountain Road Doyle, TN 38559-3030 (C) 931.212.0267 (H) 931.657.3107 (F) 931.657.3108
