WHAT IS A BILLION?

Colonist, Volume LVIII, Issue 14406, 17 May 1917, Page 8

WHAT IS A BILLION?

A correspondent writes as follows to the "Dunedin Star":—"Tho article in the Star' under tfce above caption is highly erroneous. For instance", 'since the birth of Christ there has been but a few more than a billion of minutes.' As a matter, of fart there lave not been ti:e tenth part of a billion minutes since then. Again, <if a rifle a billion miles away were shot at a man (the bullet travelling a mile in two seconds) it would not arrive for 800 years.' The writer of this has no notiqn\vhat a billion means, for it is a simple fact that the bullet would require 15,000 years to make thip journey.' Where the writer loses himself is in starting'out • h-. assumption that a billion f 1.000,000,000, whereas it is i 1,000,000,000.000 (one million of millions). The notion of counting a bilhon sterling in florins in six years and four months, counting : tw° ,a. Recond, is funny. If a man had | a billion sovereigns, and was to count tour a second it would take him over WOO years before r.e completed his task."