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At the time of this book\'s printing, the U.S. national debt was about $10 trill

ID: 2163772 • Letter: A

Question

At the time of this book's printing, the U.S. national debt was about $10 trillion.

(a) If payments were made at the rate of $1,220 per second, how many years would it take to pay off the debt, assuming that no interest were charged? (answer in years)

(b) A dollar bill is about 15.5 cm long. If ten trillion dollar bills were laid end to end around the Earth's equator, how many times would they encircle the planet? Take the radius of the Earth at the equator to be about 6,378 km. (answer in times)

Explanation / Answer

(a) Time taken = 10,000,000,000,000/(1220x60x60x24x365) = 259.91 years (b) Length of bills in total = 15.5/(100x1000) x 10,000,000,000,000 km=a Circumference of earth = 2 x (22/7) x 6378 km=b No. of times it can encircle planet = a/b = 38662.7 times