but what is a "trillion"?... how do you conceptualize a number this large?
US Debt converted to seconds:
1 trillion seconds = ( 10^12 sec)/( 3.16 x 10^7 sec/yr) = 31,688 years
17.3229668 x 31,688 yr = 548,932 years
Homo-erectus lived 500,000 years ago. Neanderthals didn't evolve until nearly 300,000 years later.
US Debt converted to hours:
1 trillion hours = ( 10^12 hr)/( 8,766 hr/yr) = 114,077,116 years
17.3229668 x 144,077,116 yr = 1,976,154,095 years ~ 2 billion years
The only known living organisms 2 billion years ago were a form of algae. The first oxygen was produced on Earth.
US Debt converted to days:
1 trillion days = ( 10^12 days)/( 365.25 days/yr) = 2,737,850,787 years
17.3229668 x 2,737,850,787 yr = 47,427,698,289 years ~ 50 billion years
The universe is only 13 billion years old. So 50 billion is truly meaningless.
US Debt converted to light-years:
17,322,966,800 miles / 5.878625 mi/ly = 2.95 light years ~ 3 light-years
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years (2.4×1019 km) from Earth.
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf [star] about 4.24 light-years from Earth.
source:
US Debt Clock - February 10, 2014
How Big is a Trillion? - NASA
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