Measurement Analogies


How small is PPB and PPT?

Parts per Million
In one minute, a fast runner could run a distance that would represent one part per million (one millionth) of the distance to the moon.

A 30 second TV commercial, relative to the time in one year, is about one part per million.

Parts per Billion
A 747 airliner can hold over 50,000 gallons of fuel. One part per billion represents about four drops of liquid mixed in the contents of that tank.

If you have a couple of one dollar bills in your pocket it represents one part per billion out of Bill Gates’ estimated net worth.

If you gather six people in a room, their population density relative to the population of the world is 1 part per billion.

One Milliliter (less than a teaspoon) of water in an Olympic sized swimming pool would be about a part per billion.

Parts per Trillion
Less than half of a drop of oil in a super tanker containing six million gallons of oil would comprise about one part per trillion.

Two revolutions of a golf ball on a putting green represents a part per trillion relative to the distance from the earth to the sun.

Resources on the perspective of numbers
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences by John Allen Paulos, Hill and Wang, 1988.

Larger than Life: Can numbers become too big ? by Jim Holt, in Lingua Franca, Volum 11, No. 1, 2001.

One Million, by Hendrik Hertzberg, Times Books (1993)

Imagining the Universe: A Visual Journey, by Edward Packard, Perigree Books (1994)

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