Billions and Billions
Original source unknown, but the math checks out.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, consider the following:
A billion seconds ago it was 1982.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it (as of 5 years ago)
- A billion hours: One billion hours ago represents a time a bit over 114,000 years in the past, an era generally classified as the Lower Paleolithic era, or the “Old Stone Age.”
- A billion days ago: Some versions of this piece include the line “A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.” A billion days is approximately 2.74 million years; the era defined by that time period is generally estimated to be about when the first species of the genus Homo appeared in Africa, having diverged from the Australopithecines.
- A billion dollars ago: If the U.S. federal government were spending a billion dollars every 8 hours and 20 minutes, its total yearly expenditure would be a little more than $1 trillion. In the last few years, the budgets approved by Congress have been about double that amount, or $2 trillion per year.
