Math Query

Tuesday, 15 October 2013 22:53
dr_phil_physics: (hal-9000)
[personal profile] dr_phil_physics
You can type anything into Google and it'll give you some sort of an answer.

I am working on a silly story and the protagonist needs to carry $1.6 million. So I plugged in "How much does one million dollars weigh?"

ANSWER 1: 220 lbs.
ANSWER 2: about a thousand pounds
ANSWER 3: 22.026 lbs.

Now obviously it will depend on denomination, but both 1 & 3 said they were using 100s. Clearly something's wrong here.

Both 1 & 3 credit a US banknote as one gram or 454 bills per pound. $1,000,000 / $100 = 10,000. 10,000 / 454 = 22.03. So, ANSWER 1 has a math error, ANSWER 2 might be true if we're dealing with "small unmarked bills" where a million singles would weigh 2203 lbs., and ANSWER 3, though suspicious with its 5 significant figures answer, is true.

1 & 2 came via ask.com while 3 came via Yahoo!

Now on to size. How silly would you look trying to lug a million dollars. So "How big is a million dollars?" This time I had no hesitation, as the first response was from The Straight Dope boards. The teeming millions couldn't let me down.

There's a link to a somewhat hilarious simulation, which is nothing less than I expect from people who read The Straight Dope.

Anyway, a nice silver 5" Zero Halliburton case would hold it all. As for $1,600,000, a decent large rolling suitcase would handle both the bulk and the 35 lbs. Or a very nice Zero Halliburton rolling suitcase for $840 on sale.*** Hell, anyone traveling on an airline with such a large bag knows it's easy to exceed 49 lbs. (grin)

That's how I spent part of my evening.

You're welcome.

Dr. Phil

*** -- You've got $1.6 million and you're gonna stint on the case because it's nearly a thousand bucks? There's a reason the bad guys in movies always hand over the expensive cases -- they're part of the disposable cost of business.

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