Putting numbers in perspective

How long does it take to count to one thousand?

tl;dr; You can learn how long it takes to count to any given number here. It takes about an hour to count to one thousand.

A few days ago I read something that sparked me some interest: counting to a trillion would take someone over 30 thousand years, if they took 1 second counting each number from 1 to 1 trillion (in short scale, meaning 1 billion = one thousand millions, not one million millions).

The idea was to put the number in a different perspective, as we're quite bad at grasping large numbers.

I'd never thought about numbers that way, and honestly, was quite refreshing.

So I was curious about what how long would it really take to count to such a number, since you definitely can't say, for example, 800502402321 (eight hundred billion, five hundred two million, four hundred two thousand, three hundred twenty-one) in one second, and many more of the numbers.

Turns out, someone had already done the math for how long to count to one trillion, considering the averages per numbers and waking hours.

So I figured I'd practice a bit more of Next.js, TypeScript, and Now, and build a micro app for it, referencing some of those calculations.

So now you can learn how long it takes to count to any given number, and the source code is also available. I'm happy to provide it with any license you need if you want to use the code. number-to-words and Moment.js were quite helpful in getting the conversion to more "human" terms from the raw numbers.

It's been very interesting for me to put even some smaller numbers in a different perspective, like a thousand. Maybe there's a new way of valuing time with it.

P.S.: There's also a tiny easter egg, if you're curious.