Did You Know

That a billion seconds is roughly 31 years?

That is one of the useless facts that currently resides in my head. In sixth grade we had a POW! (Problem of the Week!) that asked how many years equals a billion seconds. We could use calculators, POW were to stretch our brain! Well, Obviously you just start with the smallest unit and divide 1,000,000,000 by 60, and then by 60, then by 24, and then by 365.25 (I even remembered the leap year concept) and that's how many years. So I was proud of myself, and remembered the relationship.

Two weeks later, we had a math test, and the extra credit was "Roughly How many years is a billion seconds?" Dumb, right? We were given a calculator and told to show our work. i.e. Setting up the equations. So I wrote

" 1,000,000,000 = about 31 years. I can't show my work because I remember the answer from doing the problem two weeks ago."

I got full credit.

And now i credit that experience with knowing this useless fact!