New York City is home to 60 billionaires, the most in the world. (Moscow is second with 50.) A billion is a number our minds can't truly comprehend. It's simply three zeroes more than a million. But thanks to our friends at the American Museum of Natural History--an institution that deals with much larger numbers--we have a great way of putting things in perspective.
This spring, I've asked most of my groups the following question:
"lf you were to count a billion dollars, laying down one dollar per second, how long would it take you?"
"A BILLION SECONDS!" an eighth-grader always shouts out with pride.
That's true, but the answer I'm looking for? Approximately 32 years.
So how long would it take you to count the money--in dollar bills--of our mayor, not coincidentally the city's richest resident? It would take you almost six hundred years to count his $18 billion.
And how about the $316 billion (calculated in today's U.S. dollars) of the richest man of all time, J.D. Rockefeller? Approximately 10,000 years...or twice the age of the Pyramids.
Now that $62,000 tube of lipstick at Bergdorf Goodman seems cheap, doesn't it?
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