Science Questions

Allan Scahill asked the Naked Scientists: You hear a lot about the U.S. stimulus package and that it's a HUGE amount (nearly a trillion US$). What I want to know is: If you have piles of either $1.00, $100.00 or $1000.00 dollar bills, what would this amount look like? Would it fill a football field or several of them? Thanks Allan Scahill What do you think?

If you would be so kind as to supply me with 1 trillion dollar bills, I will be happy to find an answer for you.

Any demonination used $ bills will be fine.

So, in short-scale countries (most English speaking ones) a trillion is a million million. Say that a bill is one millimetre thick (give or take), that means 1 million per kilometre. Therefore your stack of dollar bills would be 1 million km high, or about 3 times the distance to the moon from earth.

Oh BTW, please make it US $, and no notes of a dubious nature. I don't want the filth breathing down my neck when I do a runner with arms full of dosh!

A US dollar bill is 15.5956cm x 6.6294cm x 0.010922cm

Mate, you have one accurate ruler.

I was including a gap between the bills, but fair enough, the total can be reduced a bit. Even using 0.5mm, it's still a damn long way!

Given that there would be some air between each bill, I would think a stack of 1000 $ bills would be around 30cms high.

A footy pitch (US Soccer) measures approx 100 x 75 m. = 7500 M2

A US $ bill has an area of 0.0103385 M2

Stone the crows, my calculator just ran off!

Come back ........

Wouldn't gravity, weight, and compression of the dollar bills eliminate  the air in between the bills?

Good point Karen, lend me a grand and I'll put this to the test!

Wow! at this rate I'll be in the news as the next Made-Off (with the loot) or Stanford (also appears to have Made-Off with the dosh). Might even get a Knighthood.

Arise Sir Don_1 (Psst Here's a niffty wad for your good self)

Lol....Lol....sorry Charlie...but I think I will wait for you....LolWhen you get it... tell me where we are going to spend it!

ummmmmm just wondering where you got this information? i am doing a project in chemistry about a mole of dollar bills, and this seems to be the only place on the internet with the dimensions of a U.S. dollar bill...

I'm offering the same empirical study as Don1 but please remit a cheque instead.