Why a Billion Takes 31.7 Years to Count

If you counted one number per second, it would take about 31.7 years to reach a billion! That’s nonstop counting, day and night, no snack breaks, no sleep, for more than three decades.

Here’s why it adds up so fast.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Multiply that by 365 and you get about 31.5 million seconds in a year. So even with perfect counting, you’d only get to around 31 million by year’s end.

Visualize a Billion

If you stacked a billion pennies, the pile would stretch nearly 870 miles high; about the same as three International Space Stations stacked on top of each other.