What is a "trillion"?

"My favorite way to think of it is in terms of seconds," says David Schwartz, a children's book author whose How Much Is a Million? tries to wrap young minds around the concept. "One million seconds comes out to be about 11 1/2 days. A billion seconds is 32 years. And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years.I like to say that I have a pretty good idea what I'll be doing a million seconds from now, no idea what I'll be doing a billion seconds from now, and an excellent idea of what I'll be doing a trillion seconds from now."

One million...

One hundred million...

One billion...

One trillion...


And our (the USA) national debt is nearing 11.5 trillion dollars.