[RESOLVED] A Simple Math Question...

[Code Doc]

(1) Find 2.3 trillion dollar bills.
(2) Connect them end on end to form a chain of dollar bills.

How many times would the chain would wrap around the world at the equator?

[Vectris]

Measure the length of a dollar, then Google the circumference of the earth, then divide the circumference by the length * 2.3 Trillion and you have your answer.

[NickThissen]

(One Trillion Dollar bill)

The width of a dollar bill is about 189 mm. The equatorial circumference of the earth is 40,075.02 km.
So if you have 2.3 trillion dollar bills, the chain (with a length of 189 * 2.3 = 434.7 mm) would wrap around about 2.3 * 189 * 10^-6 / 40075.02 = 1.08 * 10^-8 times.

[jemidiah]

2.3 * 189 * 10^-6 / 40075.02 = 1.08 * 10^-8 times.

189 mm * 2.3 trillion / 40,075.02 km = 10,847.1562

Pretty sure you forgot the "trillion" bit, maybe another unit conversion too.

[NickThissen]

You probably didn't see that particular Simpsons episode where mr burns has a 'one trillion dollar' bill. When I read the first post I actually read "Find 2.3 'one trillion dollar bills' ", so you would only have 2.3 notes

[jemidiah]

hahaha *Doh!*

I did see that episode, and I knew you were referring to it. I even thought of the joke, and the possibility that you could use it occurred to me. But... it didn't click in my brain that you were using it. lol, that's strange

[anhn]

I don't think Code Doc didn't know the answer (remember he is a Doc). Is there any trick Doc?

There are two definitions of (number) trillion: see wiki
for short scales countries: 10¹² or 1,000,000,000,000
for long scales countries: 10¹⁸ or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

So, the answer is:
for short scales countries: 189*2.3*10¹²/40,075,016,686 = 10,847.1519537481 times
for long scales countries: 189*2.3*10¹⁸/40,075,016,686 = 10,847,151,953.7481 times

[jemidiah]

Another good point anhn. In fact, on these distance scales, length contraction or dilation depending on ambient air temperature would be a decently large factor too, as would inaccuracies in the printing process. Guestimating an error of +/- 1 mm per bill aggregated, you'd get a relative error of ~0.5% in the final answer. That's about 50, or 50,000,000, extra trips .

[anhn]

Another good point anhn. In fact, on these distance scales, length contraction or dilation depending on ambient air temperature would be a decently large factor too, as would inaccuracies in the printing process. Guestimating an error of +/- 1 mm per bill aggregated, you'd get a relative error of ~0.5% in the final answer. That's about 50, or 50,000,000, extra trips .

Haha!
You are right, I think the error should be more as the length of a bill is 189mm in NY but at equator (it is much hotter) the length of a bill is only about 129mm ( who knows, ask someone in equator countries) and how about the mountains and oceans and when the bills are wet or dry. I have no experience and don't know about these factors.
Anyway, only "guestimating". That is unreal! An impossible task!
Perhaps use Zimbabwe dollar bills we can do it quicker.

[Logophobic]

Nevermind that (1) there aren't enough bills in print and (2) even if there were, you wouldn't live to see the task completed.

[jemidiah]

Nevermind that (1) there aren't enough bills in print and (2) even if there were, you wouldn't live to see the task completed.

...or that nobody would ever have enough motivation to bother with anything of this sort even if you could live for centuries and there were quadrillions of bills in print. It's still interesting how complicated the answer to an apparently simple question gets when you get down to a fine enough resolution.

[Code Doc]

Nevermind that (1) there aren't enough bills in print and (2) even if there were, you wouldn't live to see the task completed.

However, we are printing more USA currency today at a faster rate than in all of history. Many economists claim this is an invitation to economic disaster.

Consider this. If the USA national debt reaches $10 trillion, even if we started paying back at the rate of $100 billion per year, nobody in this century would ever see it reach $0. Compare that to Austrailia's national debt--virtually nil if I am not mistaken.

Thanks to all who replied to this post. I have a feeliing that few people really understand what a trillion is, but the newspeople today seem to be throwing it around like loose change.

[jemidiah]

As long as we're our own creditors the national debt thing doesn't matter much in a macro-econ sense. Of course, it ends up changing if it's foreign debt (I'm no economist).