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[-] dumples@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago

I think it helps to convert the same ratios to easily understood dollars.

So $1 is to $1000 (one thousand) what $1000 dollars is to $1,000,000 (one million) is what $1,000,000 (one million) is to 1,000,000,000 (one billion).

[-] Ulvain@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 year ago

Best illustration I had read was the "stairwell" analogy.

Each step is a net worth of +$100k.

10 steps on the staircase, you have $1M. Imagine being 10 steps up on the stairs - higher than most, but really you can still see them, relate..

Now if 10 stpes = 1M, 10,000 steps = 1B.

The empire state building is ~1500 steps. 1B is about 6.5 Empire State buildings of height.

Musk has a net worth of 450B.

That's 450 x 10,000, that's 4,500,000 steps, or about 3,000 Empire State buildings, or comfortably in low earth orbit.

So when you look down at those on ground floor or those 10 steps above ground, the difference to you is not only inconsequential, it's literally unnoticeable

[-] dumples@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago

That's a good one as well.

[-] workerONE@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

If the Empire State building has 1,500 steps, then 6.5 Empire State buildings would have 9750 steps

[-] JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Hence why he said about

9750 ~ 10k

[-] incogtino@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

The USA will nod and smile at this simple and straightforward explanation then complain that no system can possibly be intuitive if it's based on multiples of 10

Give me 5280 feet to the mile and units that may represent weight or volume depending on context, or give me death

this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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