Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Biggest Number and National Debt

Before I forget-you can head over to my photo blog to see a great fix it for me this week and some "cold" pictures!
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The other day when we were driving in the car Lucas and Alex began having a discussion.
Alex: "To infinity and beyond is the biggest number."
Lucas: "No, because you could have 'two-to-infinity-and-beyond', then 'three-to-infinity-and- beyonds all the way up to '200-to-infinity-and-beyonds"

After I stopped laughing I explained to them what infinity meant and told them that "to infinity and beyond" was just something Buzz Lightyear said.

This lead to Lucas talking about how high he could count and he asked how long it would take to count to a trillion?

So I busted out my calculator on my phone, don't worry Eric was driving, and we did some math.

Assuming you count 1 number every second (yes this would be hard to do when you are saying big numbers I know-but just go with it)

So 1 number every second-there are 60 seconds in a minute X 60 minutes in an hour X 24 hours in a day X 365 days in a year X 80 (a good average life span)= 2, 522,880,000 or 2.5 billion.

And to think, the federal debt is at a record high of 14 Trillion (or approximately $45,530.97 per person.) A number a person could never even count to in their entire life time.

Hmm interesting.

13 comments:

  1. That really makes the debt seem scary high!

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  2. That's pretty funny! Ethan will be very interested to know that a person could only count to 2.5 billion too. We have similar conversations quite often!

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  3. This is one of the reason I love working with children..WTG Mom...great post! And yes YIKES quite scary about the national debt.

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  4. I never thought of it like that. And that is really quite scary! No wonder we are so messed up!

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  5. So it's all really cute until you get to the federal debt and then I just get mad. LOL
    Hey, my son was telling me that "google" is a number?! What?!

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  6. Well that is very interesting. What a great mommy, showing practical application to your inquisitive kiddos. Most parents would have just said "that's just silly, please be quiet" and went about playing games on their phone. You get two thumbs up!

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  7. An even bigger number is googolplex. It is irritating to think that all my life I have tried to stay out of debt only to be about 90000 in the hole for Melidee and me because of the national debt.

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  8. Wow, that's an apathy inducing number if ever I've heard one.

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  9. Ok. I'm a little down now.

    But I remember the Little One asking me what the last number was. I remember finally answering "There isn't one ... you can always have one more."

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  10. hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Very interesting! Your children are very thought provoking!! =)

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  11. First, your children are darling. And creative.
    Second, that is just sick. Flat out horribly sick. And China now owns us. *Sigh* Has the recession not taught anything? Didn't parents teach their future politicians "Now child, you can't spend money until you earn it. That just isn't honest." It is a good thing I don't follow politics. I would be very upset all the time.

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  12. Have you seen that video going around Facebook of the boy explaining the President's plan to reduce 100 million dollars from the national debt???
    It was mind boggling! If you haven't seen it, I'll send you a link...

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