What does "a million" look like?

[AlecBGreen]

I teach Earth Science and Biology and we often deal with large numbers. Most people just have no concept of how big 1 million is, much less a billion or (gasp) trillion. I created this image to help. Its an 88 x 122 dot picture (for a total of 10,004 dots). Im going to print out 100 of these on 8.5x11 paper and put these along the hallway. Hopefully it will do the trick and help this monstrous number sink in. Just think, the earth is 4.5 BILLION years old...

[CrispyQ]

1. Some time ago, a fellow DUer shared this site:

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

It's stunning.

[Laf.La.Dem.]

3. Thanks

Saved that site - you are right - STUNNING

[snagglepuss]

4. Stunning is an understatement. Excellent graphic. Thanks for posting. nt

[FiveGoodMen]

6. Wow!

I was not prepared.

Everyone: go have a look at that!

[AlecBGreen]

8. awesome, thanks!

[Enthusiast]

12. Yeah, we better cut social security.

:sarcasm:

[struggle4progress]

2. oops -- didn't work

i guess my effort to post a million dots saturated some buffer

[snagglepuss]

5. Please re-consider. Its a great idea but using 100 pages of paper for a demo

is not environmently friendly:(

[AlecBGreen]

7. I reprint on used paper

so its a matter of ink & electricity. I think its a worthwhile use of material to break these kids out of a limiting frame of mind

[Esra Star]

9. If you want to represent a three dimensional million

I think the easiest thing to visualise is a cubic metre box.
This will contain exactly one million cubic centimetres.

[Nihil]

10. But that doesn't work as well ...

... as people look at the outside and think "one unit" not the inside
and think "one million units".

Like it or not, using area or length to express large numbers of
small units is far more effective at getting the message across.

:shrug:

[Esra Star]

11. It depends on what the message is.

My idea pivotted around the fact that most people, on a daily basis, handle an object that is
a cube that is approximately one cubic centimetre. (dice, sugar cube, ...).
If you then juxtapose this smaller cube with the larger cubic metre, a good sense of proportion
should follow.

I don't think the "problem" of large numbers will ever be understandable. As humans we are only evolved, mathematically??, a little bit(?).

The one I found relatively useful was the height of a pile of banknotes.

If you pile:

1,000,000 will be close to four feet tall.

1,000,000,000 will be around 1356 yards (Empire State is around 417)

one trillion:
1,000,000,000,000 will be 770 miles ( the ISS orbits at a mean of 230 miles).

Cheers