1,000,000 and More

I was at Popular Bookstore Miri today when I saw the hardcover 224-page book “1,000,000 and more” by Mariel Marohn and published by Tectum Publishers. Glancing at  the price tag, I quickly grabbed a copy. RM29.90 for this 9 x 0.9 x 12.5 inches hardcover book filled with beautiful photos is definitely a steal!

The cover of the book “1,000,000 and more”

1,000,000 –always a fascinating number, isn’t it? So what comes to mind? A million dollars in your bank account, a city with millions of people, an Youtube video with millions of views, the £115 million paid by former Qatari Prime Minster Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Than for the Pablo Picasso masterpiece “Les Femmes d’Alger”. The possibilities are endless.

The book “1,000,000 and more”  offers you this fascinating number from many different perspectives as well as all the possibilities that lie within – quantities, proportions, distances, incredibly high probabilities and time. It provides food for thought and is filled with amazing photos & illustrations, informative contents and mind-boggling comparisons that will not only make you think but also laugh. It is an extraordinary collection of ideas – and yet, it is merely a tiny selection, given the millions of possibilities out there.

 
Each of us, for instance, spends approximately 3 years – a whopping 1,500,000 seconds – of our life in the toilet. But compared to the 2,300,000,000 seconds of our average lives, that’s not a whole lot.

 
Or do you know that every autumn 100,000,000 monarch butterflies leave Canada and the United States heading south to Mexico? Migrating more than 3,000 kilometres across the North American continent, as many as 14,000,000 butterflies per hectare crowd the trees and the ground in Mexico.

every autumn 100,000,000 monarch butterflies leave Canada and the United States heading south to Mexico

And are you aware that Antarctica has not seen any rain in 2,000,000 years? And that Beijing boasts 4,000,000 bicycles? And that 2,500,000,000 witnessed the funeral procession of Princess Diana? And that every year, 180,000,000 Valentine cards are sent in the US? And that China produces 45,000,000,000 chopsticks a year? And that 500,000,000 sperms try to inseminate a human egg? And that the odds of being struck by lightning are just 1 to 12,000,000.

Antarctica has not seen any rain in 2,000,000 years

Every year, 180,000,000 Valentine cards are sent in the US

And it was J. Paul Getty who said that if you can count your money, you don’t have a 1,000,000,000 dollars.

If you want a copy of the book, better hurry down to Popular Bookstore before the books are sold out.  And I suspect that will happen any time now.