Just how big is one billion?  We throw the word around on a daily basis, but most of us cannot fathom that amount.  We hear that a country's annual budget is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.  How much is that really?

Let's get away from money for a second and see if we can visualize a billion.  We are all familiar with a standard No. 2 pencil with the little red gum eraser on the end.  The eraser has a diameter of about 1/4 in.  What if we increased the size of the eraser one billion times?  How big would it be?  Let's do the math.

          1/4 in × 1,000,000,000 = 250,000,000 in
Since 1 ft. = 12 in. we get

          250,000,000 ÷ 12 » 20,833,333 ft.
         
and, since 1 mile = 5,280 ft, we get

            20,833,333 ÷ 5,280 » 3,946 miles.
So what?  Well, the diameter of the moon is only 2,160 miles, so if we increased the size of the pencil eraser 1 billion times, we could easily hide the moon behind it!

Here's another example we can visualize.  One famous hamburger chain advertises that is has sold billions and billions of hamburgers.  How many is that, really?  Let's take 1 billion hamburgers and lay them side by side.  How long would they extend?  Let's do the math.
One hamburger is approximately 4 in. in diameter, so we have

          4 in. × 1,000,000,000 = 4,000,000,000 in.
         
Dividing by 12, we get

          4,000,000,000 in. ÷ 12 »333,333,333 ft.
         
Dividing this number by 5,280 (remember 5,280 ft. = 1 mile) we get,

          333,333,333 ft ÷ 5,280 » 63,131 miles.
         
So what?  The circumference (distance around) the earth is only 24,900 miles.  So if we laid 1 billion hamburgers side by side, they would circle the earth

          63,131 ÷ 24,900 » 2.5 times!
         
Okay, so now let's talk money.  How much is 1 billion dollars, really?  Suppose you inherited 1 billion (tax free) dollars from a rich aunt with one stipulation: you had to spend the money over the next 20 years. So how much could you spend each month?  Each day?  Let's do the math.

The first part is easy.  Let's divide 1 billion by 20 years.

          1,000,000,000 ÷ 20 = 50,000,000

So, we have to spend $50,000,000 per year.  How much is this per month?

          50,000,000 ÷ 12 » 4,166,667

We must spend a little over $4 million per month.  With approximately 30 days in each month that comes to

          4,166,667 ÷ 30 » 138,889
         
We must spend almost $140,000 per day!  Let's divide by the number of hours in a day (24).

          138,889 ÷ 24 » 5,787
         
So, we have to spend almost $6,000 per hour!  There are 60 minutes in 1 hour so

          5,787 ÷ 60 » 96.45
         
We have to spend about $97 per minute for 20 years to get rid of the initial $1 billion dollars!