Photo: Artem Podrez

How big is $1 billion?

The USA meaning of a billion is a thousand million, or one followed by nine noughts (1,000,000,000).

plainenglish.co.uk - How much is a billion? - Plain English Campaign

Which field pays the most?

Machine learning professionals As the most up-and-coming field, artificial intelligence and machine learning development are paying the big bucks...

Last updated Aug 16, 2018

What is the number 1 most Google search?

facebook Top 100 Google searches in the U.S. # Keyword Search volume 1 facebook 144,000,000 2 youtube 143,000,000 3 amazon 119,000,000 4 weather...

Last updated Jan 29, 2021

Promotion

How much is a billion?

We are used to hearing large numbers such as a billion mentioned frequently on the news (often when the budget deficit is mentioned). However, it's very difficult to picture what these huge numbers really mean. Working out how big these numbers are is made harder because, traditionally, the United States and the United Kingdom meant different amounts when each one talked about a billion. The old UK meaning of a billion was a million million, or one followed by twelve noughts (1,000,000,000,000). The USA meaning of a billion is a thousand million, or one followed by nine noughts (1,000,000,000). Increasingly in this country we are using the USA meaning of a billion for these big numbers, and a trillion for the old UK meaning of one followed by twelve noughts. The UK government has been using the American meaning of billion since 1974 for the numbers it gives out. Even the smaller American billion is a huge number, and hard to imagine, so we have tried to find a way to show how big it is using some every day objects. The object we chose was a cheesy wotsit. We then wanted to describe how much space a billion cheesy wotsits would take up, so we decided to work out how many white vans it would take to transport this many wotsits if we just filled up the back of the vans with loose wotsits. (You'd need more vans if the wotsits were bagged, because you'd have to allow space for the packaging.)

(For any Americans reading, a cheesy wotsit is like a cheeto).

So what's the answer?

We estimate that you would need at least 772 white vans to move 1 billion wotsits. How did we work this out? We had to guess a couple of things. First, we had to work out roughly how much space there is in the back of a white van. We think that this is slightly less than twelve cubic metres. Then, we measured a few wotsits, and decided that they were roughly four cm long, and roughly one a half centimetres in diameter, so we could work out how much space each one took up. Doing this we realised that most wotsits aren't straight, but usually curved, and so wouldn't pack together very well. We guessed that a wotsit needed about half its own size again when packed together, to allow for the spaces. Dividing the space inside the van by the space needed for one wotsit told us how many wotsits we could get in a van (slightly less than 1.3 million), and dividing one billion by this number gave us just over 772 white vans full of wotsits. We have seen other sites trying to visualise large numbers using rice rather than wotsits. However, we worked out that filling the back of a white van with rice would probably break the axle of the van. Since we wrote this, we have had the following simple and effective example contributed by Jess Monck.

1 million seconds is about 11.6 days

1 us billion seconds is about 32 years

1 uk billion seconds is about 32,000 years

What are 3 effects of social media?

However, social media use can also negatively affect teens, distracting them, disrupting their sleep, and exposing them to bullying, rumor...

Last updated Feb 15, 2022

Who reached 1 billion views first?

Psy's 'Gangnam Style' Turns 10: How Its Video Became the First Member of YouTube's Billion Views Club. The South Korean singer's iconic -- and...

Last updated Dec 10, 2020

Promotion

What does 8K mean in money?

What is an 8K And How Do You Read One? An 8K is a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from a public company that is making a big change or announcing a big event that could have a material impact on the stock price.

thestreet.com - What is an 8K And How Do You Read One? - TheStreet

An 8K is a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from a public company that is making a big change or announcing a big event that could have a material impact on the stock price. The SEC is a government agency that exists to protect public market investors and ensure that markets function smoothly and fairly. Can you imagine if you held stock in a company that was making an acquisition and didn’t tell you about it? 8Ks can announce an acquisition, bankruptcy, a corporate restructuring, changes to members of the board of directors, a capital raise or other similar events. Here’s an example: recently, Dominion Energy (D) - Get Free Report, a large power and energy company, filed an 8K because it was selling its natural gas assets to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for almost $10 billion. If you’re an investor in Dominion Energy, you want to know how Dominion is managing its assets. Dominion is raising cash so that it can invest in other parts of its business and deciding not to focus on natural gas. Maybe you disagree with that strategy. Maybe you agree and you’ll want to buy more shares. This is why Dominion filed an 8K. So let’s say you hold stock in a company that’s in the news and there are conflicting reports on the company and questions around a corporate action that may impact earnings for the company. To see more about how to navigate an 8K, watch the quick video above.

Watch More Videos From TheStreet and Jim Cramer:

Where is the happiest place to retire?

Top 10 happiest countries to retire in! Country Happiness Index 2020 Number of sunshine hours Spain 6.502 2,769 Malta 6.157 3,054 Colombia 5.709...

Last updated Jul 2, 2021

What are the 6 types of career?

These codes consist of six personality types that the Department of Labor uses to classify careers. Realistic. Artistic. Enterprising. Social....

Last updated Dec 4, 2022

Promotion

Are social media certifications worth it?

Social media certifications can be a good way to get training and experience that can help you land a job in the field. Certification can help...

Last updated Nov 14, 2020

Promotion

What is good views on YouTube?

If your YouTube channel has 100,000 subscribers, then you should expect between 12-15,000 views per video. That's an average ratio of...

Last updated Sep 15, 2022