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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6944
Posted: 17 August 2026 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
My son was at a birthday party where the amusement was a scientist talking about Astronomy for kids. He had a fold-out board covered with 1,000,000 zeroes to give them a visual idea how many that was. It hit me quite hard because it's a LOT and way more than I "expected" (I say with quotes, because I had really never thought about it before).


And then, by chance, I saw this morning how many posts have been written by John Byrne over the 20+ years here is significantly less than 200K -- I got hit quite hard all over again!

A million is SO MANY!
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 136877
Posted: 17 August 2026 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply
And a billion is so much more!

If someone in your family had been given the equivalent of $1,000,000,000 two thousand years ago, and your ancestors had spent it at the rate of of $1,000 a day, ever day, up to the present, without accruing interest, you’d still have 250 years to go!

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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8633
Posted: 17 August 2026 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply
I’ve used analogies similar to the one above when trying to explain just how
much a billion and trillion dollars really is
It’s really difficult to comprehend, but since the crash of 2008, billions get
thrown around in fiscal conversation in the manner that millions used to.
But they are no way near comparable in scale.
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11664
Posted: 18 August 2026 at 6:11am | IP Logged | 4 post reply
When they talk of U.K. debt being in the trillions, it
makes me realise that no matter how much they tax us, it
will never be payed off.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8633
Posted: 18 August 2026 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply
But really, if every country is in debt to the tune of billions and trillions, who
are they in debt to?
Isn’t it all a wash?
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11664
Posted: 19 August 2026 at 12:25am | IP Logged | 6 post reply
Absolutely!
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