Visualising the Absurdity of 1 Billion Dollars
1 Billion dollars is a lot of money, 1000 times bigger than 1 Million. Looking at just the numbers, however, do not do it justice since it’s difficult to visualise how great of a size that is. A Youtube by the name of Tom Scott is here to help us visualise just how big of a number that is compared to 1 Million Dollars.
He does it by assuming laying dollar bills side by side and walking for 1 million dollars and driving for 1 Billion dollars. For a million-dollar, he just has to walk 100 meters or so but for a billion dollars he drives for more than an hour! The simple maths for the video is as follows.
1 dollar
- 0.0043 inches or 0.00010922 meters (thickness)
1Billion dollars
- 1B x 0.0043 inches → 4.3M inches → 68 miles
- 1B x 0.00010922 meters → 109K meters → 109 kilometers
He has to drive 109 KMs to get to 1 Billion dollars worth of US 1 Dollars bills stacked side by side.
Another interesting visualisation is done by Twitch streamer by the name Reckful. He just does it on a notepad and honestly, it is the simplest and yet most interesting visualisation. Have a look.
Jeff Bezos has 188 of those!
Check this website to see how absurd that number really is.
