Today's Fact Courtesy of Dr. Evans.
A Billion is a lot. The next time you hear a politician use the word “billion,” casually, think about whether you want that politician spending your tax dollars. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend so here is some help.
A billion seconds ago it was 1973 and a lot of you reading this hadn’t been born yet.
A billion minutes ago was around the time of the birth of Christianity.
A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion days ago nothing walked on two feet on earth.
A billion dimes (the thinnest coin in the U.S. mint) stacked one on top of the other would be over 4 million feet tall. To put that into perspective, the Taipei 101 building is currently the world tallest building, standing 1,670 feet and it would take 2495 of them standing on top of each other to equal a billion stacked dimes.
Now the scary part…
A billion dollars ago, at the rate our government spends it was how long ago?
Last weeks fact is “math.” (Yes I know ‘math’ was included in the question, but all answers are in the question if you know where to look.) Anyway, this is based on The Pyramid of Science, first postulated by Frederick Turner, a University of Texas humanist and referenced by Leon Lederman in his book, The God Particle, where I found it. “There exists,” Turner said, “a science pyramid. The base of the pyramid is mathematics, not because math is more abstract or more groovy, but because mathematics does not rest upon or need any of the other disciplines, whereas physics, the next layer of the pyramid, relies on mathematics. Above physics sits chemistry, which requires the discipline of physics; in this admittedly simplistic separation, physics in not concerned with how atoms combine to form molecules and how molecules behave when in close proximity. The forces between atoms are complex, but ultimately they have to do with the law of attraction and repulsion of electrically charged particles – in other words, physics. Then comes biology, which rests on an understanding of both chemistry and physics. The upper tiers of the pyramid become increasingly blurred and less definable: as we reach physiology, medicine, psychology, the pristine hierarchy becomes confused. At the interfaces are the hyphenated or compound subjects: mathematical physics, physical chemistry, biophysics.”
The pyramid may be disrespectfully summed up by an old saying: the physicists defer only to the mathematicians, and the mathematicians defer only to God (though you may be hard pressed to find a mathematician that modest, I’m married to one).
Rudy took the only swing by answering “logic.” Thanks Rudy.
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