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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!gunsch
From: gunsch@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Billion and billions
Message-ID: <10600183@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Nov-84 15:07:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.10600183
Posted: Fri Nov 23 15:07:00 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Nov-84 07:58:55 EST
References: <177@philabs.UUCP>
Lines: 31
Nf-ID: #R:philabs:-17700:uiucdcs:10600183:000:1363
Nf-From: uiucdcs!gunsch    Nov 23 14:07:00 1984

<- give, support the helpless victim of computer errorr

I think most people don't know how many  a  billion,  or  even  a
million, is.  When you see it  written down, what's two or  three 
more zeros at the end.  It is really hard to comprehend how  much
a billion is.

I remember (long, long time ago) when I was young ...

My brother tended to exaggerate a bit, well, maybe more then just
a bit.  In an attempt to curve my brother's habit, my Mother told
him that the next time he said `thousands' when he meant five  or
six  she  would  make him count to whatever number he exaggerated
by.  Next time he said `millions', so she was going to  make  him
count  to  1,000,000, on paper.  He had to write one million tal-
lies (every fifth tally crosses the first four forming groups  of
five).   To  make  it easy for her to count, he had to put so may
tallies per line, so many lines per page.  Well, after  about  an
hour and a half of this punishment my brother was up to somewhere
around 15,000 and was  having  visions  of  himself  growing  old
counting  to  1,000,000, and my Mother relented.  To this day, my
brother is very careful about exaggerating, if he says  something
happened 150 times I draw a lower bound at about 140.



		paul gunsch	{the_world}!pur-ee!uiucdcs!gunsch

	the reason computer chips are so small 
	is that computes eat so little