Not One of Many

There is by now a famous cartoon that appeared in The New Yorker of a perhaps an executive talking into a phone. The caption reads: "A billion is a thousand million? Why wasn't I told that before?"

I don't know the date of the cartoon, but it is dated. The business man is talking into a receiver that has a cord, so therefore he's using a land-line. He has a suit and tie on. Not contemporary. And of course he's expressing surprise at what then is a bit of a frontier number.

As a kid I used to hear the expression, "You're one is a million." This was and can still be a term of endearment. You're unique, wonderful, hard to find, great. As I got older I also heard the punch line to the set-up. "You're one in a million, and since I've never seen a million, you look like something I've never seen." Not so nice.

Then there's the one that goes: "You're one in a million. And since there are two billion people in China, there are two thousand other people just like you." We're getting closer to the topic.

Billion has given way to trillion. Million is not even close in the rear view mirror. Despite what the little writing might tell us about objects being really closer. The guy next door has a million. And he's a jerk.

The esteemed Senator from Illinois, Everett Dirksen once sonorously explained that if you spend a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money. That was in the 60s. The 1960s. He was born in the 1890s.

So, where are we? We're at the point where a trillion is the new billion. It had to happen. Things expand like waistlines.

The absolute best depiction of this I've seen so far appeared on the Op-Ed page of the Times, March 31. Hard to reproduce here, so the link should be useful.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/31/opinion/20090331_schott.html?scp=1&sq=Op-Chart:%20Schott%E2%80%99s%20Stimulus%20Simulator%20...&st=cse

As good as this is, and it is good, what is even harder to see and depict is that a million can be written as 10 to the 6th as an exponent. A trillion is 10 to the 12th. When you multiply numbers with exponents you add the exponents.

Thus, 10 to the 6th times 10 to the 6th is 10 tho the 12th.

There are a million millions in a trillion.

Why wasn't I told this before?

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com/