If I'd have known how much that cost.....

[VeRetired]

How many times have we heard Blair and Brown talk about vast amounts of money being spent in our name. For; wars, white elephant structures, financing the Olympic Games, etc.... Figures with that many zeros that the average person can't decipher, (include me in that group).
Well maybe this site will give you some perspective of what a Billion actually means.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/trivia/billions.asp

It's an american site so please make allowances

 

[pipme]

Think the 'billion' is standardised at 1x10^9 (thousand million) now ...... And from the same site ...

Believe it or not, but 8.02 PM on February 20 this year will be an historic moment in time. It will not be marked by the chiming of any clocks or the ringing of bells, but at that precise time, on that specific date, something will happen which has not occurred for 1,001 years and will never happen again.
As the clock ticks over from 8.01 PM on Wednesday, February 20, time will, for sixty seconds only, read in perfect symmetry 2002, 2002, 2002, or to be more precise: 20:02, 20/02, 2002.
This historic event will never have the same poignancy as the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month which marks Armistice Day, but it is an event which has only ever happened once before, and is something which will never be repeated.
The last occasion that time read in such a symmetrical pattern was long before the days of the digital watch and the 24-hour clock -- at 10.01 am on January 10, 1001.
And because the clock only goes up to 23.59, it is something that will never happen again

Oh damn ..... missed that, replay please ! Or was it an urban myth ?

 

[securespark]

http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/mjd52325/

Go here to find interesting pictures of the historic moment......

 

[mg_graham]

what about 11 minutes past eleven on the eleventh of november 1111, that's pretty symmetrical (1111 1111 1111) and more recent that 1001.

 

[jtaunton]

Surely 12 minutes past 9 on the 21st December 2112 must count too, doesn't it ?? (21:12, 21/12, 2112)

 

[pipme]

............... Or was it an urban myth ?

The question was asked .... and now answered !