Coming to Grips with Kasner's Google
Posted: Friday, October 21, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
In 1938, American mathematician, Edward Kasner, was thinking of a very large number: a one followed by a hundred zeros (10 to the 100thpower). A million is 10 to the 6thpower—a one with six zeros behind it. He couldn’t think of an appropriate term to describe his big number, so he asked his nine year old nephew to suggest one. The boy thought ‘a google’ would be a good name for it. The number is so large that if all of the atoms in the known universe were counted, it wouldn’t come close to adding up to a google. The popular Internet search engine was named after Kasner’s number, suggesting the scope of possibilities, perhaps.
But, then again, when compared to the years in my life, compared to the number of people here now or who have ever lived on the planet, or compared to the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, they are large numbers. All of those, in many cases squandered, dollars add up to a huge, hard to comprehend, number. How many grains of sand are in a couple of dump trucks full? Certainly there’s not nearly a trillion.
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My fuel gauge was on E the other day. I knew how many more miles I could go so I planned to get to my buddy’s gas station near home before I filled up. When construction closed one lane and we were backed up for a mile I got a little concerned. As I inched along, bumper to bumper, I thought about all the cars across the country burning gasoline. I tried to envision the size of the tank that would hold just one day’s consumption. It would be huge.
I heard on the radio this morning that, in 2011, the American people will set a record and spend about $470 billion dollars on gasoline. It sounds like a lot, but, count every dollar spent by every American filling every car in the country with gasoline for an entire year and the total amount is less than the proposed additional government spending on the Jobs Bill. It is less than one third of the amount of money the country borrowed from somewhere to spend on stuff last year.
If we confiscated every dollar the oil companies got for selling gasoline--not just the profit, but all the money--we would not come close to balancing the federal budget. If we confiscated every dollar earned or possessed by every person in the nation who had over a couple of million dollars, we would not nearly balance the federal budget. If we took every dollar from all the goods and services this country produced last year, all of it, the Federal Government would spend it, every last dime, in less than five years.
(my figures are only estimates- for accurate numbers, you’ll have to Google it)
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Food prices went up 8% this year, but I only got a 3% raise. They raised the price of my TV service by over 8%, too. With all the new regulations, my electric bill went way up this year, too. The school taxes went up substantially again because we have to pay extra into government employee pensions plans that got hurt by the stock market crash. Things were tough, but now I have to put a fuel pump in my car; so I can burn the gasoline to get to work so I can earn money to buy the gasoline, so I can go back to work.... I don’t know where I’m going to come up with the extra $500 for auto repairs. It seems like a big number.
“‘There must be some kind of way out of here,’ said the joker to the thief.”
I can't seem to get my mind wrapped around this kind of madness. I need some help to come to grips with it. Maybe I’ll just Google "insanity," and see what comes up.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)Very good presentation of our ridiculous debt and spending. I was wallowing through some of the amazing stats the other day. I've forgotten the details but it was about the amount of 1 trillion dollars. It was something like stacking $1,000 bills tight together on four football fields and I believe it would be as tall as the empire state building. That may not be the stats I read, but it was just as bad sounding. Thanks for sharing this with us Jack
As usual Jack, you boggle the mind.not sure what you mean. Muddle might be a better word- thanbks for reading and commentingTo be sure Jack, the five stars mean the article is excellent. The comment 'boggle the mind' is that you are so detail oriented, that sometimes you are over my head...got it...I mean my mind is in a muddle half the time.
I can't get my head around the big figures either. Can anybody? I doubt it - not even somebody who, for example, earns billions of dollars. These giant figures lose their meaning, which is where the danger lies. So a country is in debt for a few billion. What's the harm in adding another billion?
It is insanity, Jack, and you've portrayed it very well.Thanks for readign and commenting- as always. friend.
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