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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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I got curious and did the math if $44B was denominated in $100 bills.
That's 496.85 cubic kilometers of cash. Or a pile of money that covers half of the continental US, stacked 1/4 of the height of Low Earth Orbit.
I honestly don't think one could physically burn that much cash since May 2022 in real life.
Edit: more mind bogglery!
The earth is ~40,000 km in circumference, so you could stack the bills almost 28m high around the equator (or circle the globe 256,482 times.)
I think you found an extra factor of a thousand somewhere along the way. I get 497 cubic meters: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%280.0043+inches++2.61+inches++6.14+inches%29+*+%2844+billion+%2F+100%29
Your wording needs some work there. If you're trying to say that the "pile" would reach 1/4 low earth orbit and cover half the continental US, you're absolutely incorrect. If you are saying it is a "pile of money" that "when laid out as a single layer can cover half of the continental US" or "when made into a single stack would reach 1/4 of the height of LEO", that would be mostly accurate. For perspective, 44 billion would be 44k briefcases, or 440 pallets. That's about 17 semi trailers (single high) or 9 trailers double-stacked. As a "pile" it could easily fit in a single Wal-mart parking lot and wouldn't even be that high. Still a lot of money though.
Edit: Actually, I don't even think the continental US number is accurate. A single bill is 16 in^2. Laid out as a single layer of single $1 bills, that covers ~7e11 in^2 which is about 175 square miles, not even 1/2 of Rhode Island.
That doesn't sound right. I get a volume of about 1.13 cubic cm per 100 dollar bill. There are 440 million 100 dollar bills needed for 44 billion. That gives us a volume of about 500 cubic meters. That's not even a large warehouse. Even for 1 dollar bills we would then only have roughly 50000 cubic meters, which is a far cry from 500 cubic kilometers, which would be about 5*10^11 cubic meters. A single stack of 44 billion 1 dollar bills would be about 4800km high.
In imperial units I get this for a single stack of 44B in $100 bills;
.0043 inches * 44B / (12 inches in a foot * 5280 feet in a mile) = 2986 miles
That would be approximately the distance from Los Angeles to New York. That's a long stack of bills.
I think you're off on your calculations...
https://academeblog.org/2017/02/01/visualizing-a-billion-and-a-trillion-dollars/