How Big is a Million?

In a nutshell, a million is a really big number.

If all of the images and Java applets on this site were converted to an equivalent size of text, there would not be one million words on this entire site. There wouldn't even be one million characters. (At least not when I originally wrote this, on June 16th, 2001). If you were to count at the rate of one number a second, it would take you 11½ days to count to a million, without any breaks whatsoever. I'll likely include more examples once I think of them (or you could suggest some of your own.

If you're interested in really, really big numbers, check out a billion. A billion is a thousand times larger than a million. If you were to count to a billion at the rate of one number a second, it would take you more than 31 years, quite a sizeable chunk of a lifetime...