Comment by cestith

A tenth of a percent is often a rounding error. So the difference between a million and a billion truly is about a billion.

When the above isn’t enough to light a bulb, I like introduce that as analogous to pennies.

1 penny is $0.01 10 pennies is $0.1 100 pennies is $1 1,000 pennies is $10 10,000 pennies is $100 100,000 pennies is $1,000 1,000,000 pennies is $10,000 10,000,000 pennies is $100,000 100,000,000 pennies is $1,000,000 1,000,000,000 pennies is $10,000,000

Most people understand that ten million dollars is not just a different amount but a distinct kind of amount from ten thousand dollars. The powers of ten seem to become clearer with a smaller starting amount. Once they grasp the above, point out that the relationship is the same if everything starts 100 times as large.

There’s also a great one out there comparing 1,000 to 1 million to 1 billion seconds, converted to years plus days.