brainstatic:

We naturally put millionaires and billionaires in the same general class of person, but the only reason to do that is because the words are similar. Since these aren’t numbers we can actually visualize, it’s important to understand what a billion of something is. To travel a million inches, you’d have to travel from the Southern-most tip of Manhattan and go to the Bronx. To travel a billion inches, you’d have to fly from New York to Shanghai twice. A million seconds is a little over 11 days. A billion seconds is nearly 32 years. A million ounces is about the weight of a train car. A billion ounces is 4.5 Eiffel Towers. Use these to conceptualize what the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is, and the absurd amount of wealth we’re talking about.

(via timurmurtazin)