Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-02-16
vAsTNEss OF NUMBERS.
immensely Of Billion Shown by Some
Interesting Comparisons.

1hs 1mmensity Ofa Billion Shown by Some
Interesting Comparisons.
Although the words milliard and billion
are known by name to almost every one,
yet the significance of the numbers SO ex
pressed is by far not SO distinct and ia.
miliar to many as the meanings of the
smaller numbers. For example, if the
breadth of q street is represented by
1000, 600 units, 1000, 000, 900 of such
units would give a distance equal to that
from Hamburg to San Francisco. If this
Is not remembered, we. are apt to get very
erroneous impressions, especially of astro-
nomical phenomena. AS our earth meas
ures in it's greatest circumference only
about Is, 900 miles, while the planets are
distant from the earth and from each other
spaces varying from %, O0O, 900 to 4,6O0,-
600, 900 miles, accordingly most of the dis
tances which confront us on the earth are
to be regarded as vanishingly small when
compared with the distances which con-
'front.' us in the planetary system. On the
other hand, the nearest fixed stars have
distances from the earth, and consequent
~ from any point in our planetary system,
as great as from 81, 200, 900, 900 to 4,6OO,-
600 ,000, 600 miles. For example, Sirius is
SO, 900, O0O, 900 miles distant. Consequent
~, as in the consideration of the distances
of fixed stars, we have to deal with bill
lions, while in the case of planetary dis
tances we only deal with millions of miles.
Also, all the distances of the planets from
n another must be regarded as vanish
ingly small when compared with the dis
tances which confront us in the realm of
the fixed stars. In other words, viewed
from Sirius, not only the earth or sun. but
q whole planetary system itself, would
appear as an indefinitely faint point of
light, exactly as Sirius appears to us as a
luminous point.
The reader will readily appreciate that
the number billion is generally conceived
too small when we tell him that a billion
seconds have not elapsed since the origin
of the human species, reckoning the age
of humanity at $1,000 years. It will also
seem hardly credible that a billion new
American rs cent pieces, placed one on
top of another, would reach an altitude of
over l ,00O, 900 miles-that is to say, would
form a cylindrical pile over four times as
high as the moon is from the earth.
The fact that the results of modern exact
science first required of language the for
nation of names for large numbers might
lead us to believe that the people of early
time never made use of very large m
ical statements. But this is not the case.
More than 1000 years ago there lived a
people who, from pure motives of amuse-
ment, exercised their faculties in this do
main. In India, where our present nu-
neral system was invented, names exist
ed, even in Buddha's time, for numbers
up to 100, 000, 900, 600, and Buddha him
self, it is said, prosecuted the formation
of numeral names up to the number which
we now denote by 1 and 81 appended CT
piers and might call nonnillons. This
strange passion of the Hindoos found fresh
material for exercise when in the fourth
century of our era the principle of our
present numeral system was invented by
Hindoo Brahman priests and the easy
methods of computation based on this sys-
tenn diffused over all India. 1t was now
possible to multiply with facility numbers
Of 20 places with one another and to be
sure Of the correctness of the results.
Nay, in the seventh century in India arith-
metical tournaments were held at which,
as now in our chess tournaments, the
great masters of arithmetical computation
gathered together, and he was crowned as
victor who outstripped all competitions
Omen Court.