What Does 35 Trillion Of Something Look Like?

There’s no reason at all I’m writing this. It certainly has nothing to do with national spending, I can tell you that. Matter of fact, it’s probably completely useless for you to know how big of a number 35,000,000,000,000 is.

But, if you’re just curious because you like numbers and stuff the way I do, maybe you also enjoy illustrations. And, since illustrations work best with easy-to-picture everyday items, how about in this instance we use, oh, I don’t know…an American $1 bill.

Right away, we have a problem, and it’s that ONE trillion is a pretty big number all by itself, and we’re talking about something that’s 35 times that big. So, let’s just be less dramatic and use $100 bills for the illustration.

What would $35,000,000,000,000 look like in $100 bills? Check my math, but we know that each bill is 0.0043” thick, so with that, we have all we need.

35,000,000,000,000, divided by 100, then multiplied by a 0.0043” = 1,505,000,000 inches, which converts to 125,416,667 feet, and then to 23,753 miles.

If we consider that the Space Station flies over our heads at around 260 miles or less over our heads, and that the height of Mount Everest is 29,032 feet, we arrive at this:

$35,000,000,000,000, in $100, is equivalent to 91 stacks that reach the orbit of the International Space Station. Or, 4320 stacks from sea level to the top of Everest.

Now you know why it’s always written “$__ trillion” instead of using all those zeros. Good luck.