Sometimes, it can be difficult to understand the magnitude of particularly massive numbers.
How many seconds are there in a lifetime? How many miles long is the observable universe? How many drops of water are there in the Pacific ocean?
As a writer and scientist, it’s my job to make these huge statistics easier to understand for regular people.
For example, the United States recently surpassed $30 trillion in national debt; but what does that unfathomably large figure look like if we converted it into something that more Americans can understand? Well, I did the conversion, and it turns out that $30 trillion dollars is roughly equivalent to 360 trillion Chuck E Cheese tickets, which could buy you about 180 billion Star Wars puzzles on their Wall of Prizes!
The distance from the Earth to the Moon is another one that often confuses individuals. The moon looks like it’s right next to the Earth, but how far is it, really, from our planet? Well, the answer is 238,900 miles, but if that is a hard figure to picture, then just imagine Russian social media personality, Hasbulla, standing on his own shoulders 32 million times! Does that help you understand the magnitude of our solar system?
Lastly, let's take a closer look at ourselves. There are almost 8 billion people on this planet, which is such a large number that sometimes we can forget how many other humans we are sharing this world with. To help put this figure into perspective, just think about how there are 16 billion (human) nipples on this planet, give or take.
I hope that this study provides some context for some of the unfathomable statistics that we often encounter in our daily lives.
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