I think physical size of things isn’t the best mnemonic for numbers, because we get confused by the difference between length, area, and volume/weight. For example, a cruise ship is 60 times longer than a minivan (5m vs 300m) but 100000 times heavier (2T vs 200KT). So which number should jump to mind when imagining their relative sizes, 60 or 100000 or something in between?
My favourite way to imagine large numbers is to use units of time instead. A thousand seconds is about 15 minutes, a million seconds is about 10 days, and a billion seconds is about 30 years. It’s really easy to remember.
It’s especially vivid when thinking about population or death toll numbers. If 1 person = 1 second, then 9/11 was about an hour, the Afghan war was two days, the Vietnam war was a month, and WWII was two years. Covid is two months so far, AIDS was a year, the Spanish flu was two years, the Black Death was three years. NYC population is three months, US population is ten years, world population is two centuries and a half, all people who ever lived are three thousand years.
I think physical size of things isn’t the best mnemonic for numbers, because we get confused by the difference between length, area, and volume/weight. For example, a cruise ship is 60 times longer than a minivan (5m vs 300m) but 100000 times heavier (2T vs 200KT). So which number should jump to mind when imagining their relative sizes, 60 or 100000 or something in between?
My favourite way to imagine large numbers is to use units of time instead. A thousand seconds is about 15 minutes, a million seconds is about 10 days, and a billion seconds is about 30 years. It’s really easy to remember.
It’s especially vivid when thinking about population or death toll numbers. If 1 person = 1 second, then 9/11 was about an hour, the Afghan war was two days, the Vietnam war was a month, and WWII was two years. Covid is two months so far, AIDS was a year, the Spanish flu was two years, the Black Death was three years. NYC population is three months, US population is ten years, world population is two centuries and a half, all people who ever lived are three thousand years.