Building Comprehension of Gigantic Numbers

The word trillion rolls off newscasters’ tongues frequently these days, but understanding the magnitude of that actual amount is a challenge for many people, young and old. In addition, as teachers in the U.S. can attest, reading and writing large numerals correctly is a difficult task for students to master. By reviewing some images and concepts, The Museum of Teaching and Learning hopes to help readers and their families deal more meaningfully with the day’s business and government news, and have some fun along the way.

Envisioning a trillion is often done by comparing smaller numbers. Some examples are better than others, for people like to examine objects or ideas that spring from daily life, not from imaginary trips to faraway galaxies. One impressive example is this one, initially highlighted in a book by David Schwartz, How Much Is a Million?:

And going backwards in time, a million seconds would take you back to July 2025, a billion seconds would go back to 1993, but a trillion seconds travels back into the vicinity of 30,000 B.C. when prehistoric people painted on the walls at Lascaux in Southern France.

In addition to wrapping your mind around the hugeness of a trillion, the ideas below are worth remembering:

• The abbreviation for trillion is T (a thousand K, million M, billion B).
• A trillion is written by a one followed by twelve zeros 1,000,000,000,000, compared to only nine zeros needed to write a billion and fifteen zeros needed for a quadrillion . . . or eighteen for a quintillion.
• A trillion is ten to the 12th power, equal to the number of zeroes, and written 1012.
• To memorize place value columns, always start at the decimal point and move to the left. The pattern repeats: One, ten, a hundred; one, ten, a hundred; one, ten, a hundred; one, ten, a hundred while the groups (also known as periods) shift from the ones to the thousands, millions, billions, trillions, and so forth. A helpful link can be found below.

Several decades ago, when soda pop cans had pop tops, many teachers in SoCal had students try to make a million by having children gather the little metal circles to string together in long chains that hung around the classroom. The gathering and stringing went on and on, for weeks, but getting to a million was always elusive—and that was just aiming for a “mere” million.

In closing, bringing forth a few more facts about trillions in our current world seems appropriate. The U.S, national debt is about $36.2 trillion. Actual money (coins, bills) in circulation in the U.S. is about 2.394T.

Thank you for reading!

Please click on the following links, for they provide many more opportunities to enrich understanding of a trillion.

“How to Develop a Sense of Scale” provides many real-life examples of gigantic amounts. In addition, it shares the MARVELOUS short film of Powers of Ten, a movie version of the book by the same title that came out in the 1970s and continues to sell.

“What Does One Trillion Dollars Look Like?” shows the impressive constructions made from stacks of $100 bills as they mount to a million, billion, and a trillion dollars.

The USA Today article, “How Much Is $1 Trillion?” shares some stunning facts about things that amount to a trillion.

Finally, a YouTube video about place value reviews the columns so critical to understanding large numbers.

Submitted by Greta Nagel, PhD
MOTAL President and CEO

• A million seconds would take eleven and a half days.
• A billion seconds will take much longer, at 32 years.
• And a trillion seconds will take 32,000 years!