The current US debt is about 15.67 trillion dollars (trillion in the US usage, not in the british usage). That is 15,670,000,000,000 dollars.

A penny is about 1.55mm thick.
The earth's circumference is about 40,000 kilometers.
The moon is about 385,000 kilometers away from earth.
The sun is about 150,000,000 kilometers away from earth.

Let's assume that we made a stack of pennies equal in value to the US debt. This stack would have 1,567,000,000,000,000 pennies.

How many times would this stack of pennies wrap around the earth at its equator?

How many smaller stacks of pennies could one create from the master stack that are long enough to reach the moon?

How many smaller stacks of pennies could one create from the master stack that are long enough to reach the sun?

This is boring... it's not a logic question.. just basic arithmetic with really really really really big numbers.

The answer to all questions is 0. As there is not enough raw material to create such a master stack.

correction there isnt enough material on EARTH to make it, but the rate we are going now that will be the case for most materials except iron (and a few others), there is a lot of iron :)

but as far as i can work out then in pennies we would have 1,567,000,000,000,000 * 0.00000155 (pennies converted to KM) and have 24,288,500 km of pennies, or 63 trips to the moon (or 31.5 back and forth)

Wait, there's a difference in the definition of trillion between the US and UK?

I know, this was educational for me too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

there is no difference anymore:

"For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the United Kingdom uniformly used the long scale,[3] while the United States of America used the short scale,[3] so that the two systems were often referred to as British and American in the English language. In 1974, the government of the UK switched to the short scale, a change that is reflected in its mass media and official usage.[4][5][6][7][8][9] Although some residual usage of the long scale continues in the UK,[10][11] the phrases British usage and American usage are no longer accurate characterisations. Usage of the two systems can be a subject of controversy. Differences in opinion as to which system should be used can evoke resentment between adherents, while national differences of any kind can acquire jingoistic overtones.[11]"

the US debt is composed primarily of interest, which is basically the act of making money out of nothing, so what does it matter how thick a penny is....

lol so rockman made an old ass reference that actually ended up being phased out long before he was even born? damn you silly rockman, damn you.

The stack would be 2,428,850,000 kilometers.

It would wrap around the earth 60,721 times, reach the moon 6,308 times, and reach the sun 16 times.

incorrect booboo

the earth weighs 5972200000000000000000000000 grams, pennies are 97.5% zinc and zinc makes up about 0.0075 % of the earth or
about 44792000000000000000000000 grams of zinc. Now, a penny requires 2.5 grams of zinc and we require 1567000000000000 pennies, which would equal 3917500000000000 grams of zinc. Ergo, we have enough zinc to make 1567000000000000 pennies 11434000000 times.

Even making the old copper pennies (3.4 grams of copper) would be no problem, as copper (0.0068%) is almost as abundant as zinc.

god damnit archaic, at least use comma's

Where are you going to get the energy to create the pennies though? I imagine you would have to very wisely use the Earth's latent heat to pull this off.

I am but a humble mining geologist, I find the fluff. I'll let those cursed engineers figure out how to implement it. Comma's are for pussies, scientific notation pwns, but pang won't give me a superscript button on my post editor.

There is to much of the rest of the world, or europe at least.

writing 5.9722E27 isn't good enough for you archaic?

how can we be so freaking far from each other? which is right :D

i said 63 times to the moon and you said 6308....

Brainwave - Klown is correct on the distance, you were incorrect.

1.567 quadrillion pennies would be 2.4 billion kilometers high, not 24 million kilometers high (I rounded off the exact distance).


Mike - most of the math books and articles I read were written a while ago, when it was still in common usage. The late 19th century and early 20th century was really the golden age for mathematics with such guys as Cantor, Russell, Frege, Godel, Wittgenstein, Hilbert, etc. It was when Cantor's shocking discovery that not all infinities are "equal", the creation of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, and the shocking incompleteness theorems all were discovered/created. Thus, I'm a bit stuck in the past when it comes to mathematics.

all those zeros add dramatic effect, I'm all aboutz the drama