Trillion: Typo in Bailout Nation
By Barry Ritholtz - July 2nd, 2009, 3:12PM
I discovered a typo in Bailout Nation !
In trying to explain exactly how much a trillion was, I resorted to using time as an example — a 72 year life span is 2.2 billion seconds (On page 182).
To get to the definition of a trillion notes it is 31,546 years. But that calculation was based on 60 seconds X 60 minutes X 24 hours X 365 days. It omits leap years and leap seconds!
According to my handy iPod unit converter, it should read 31,688!
My apologies for any confusion.
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Thanks for clarifying. That was really bugging me
Have a Happy 4th!
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I haven’t done the math, but if you left out a number of days in the original calculation, shouldn’t the corrected number of years be fewer, not more, than the original?
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
That’s why nothing was making sense for the last year and half !
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Leap years are a function of our dark overlords to make us work an extra day every four years. In the coming emergency, there will be leap days every six months. You are right to ignore them…
Um, back to the worry beads and the gin…
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Oh, wow, now I’m really confused. If you miscalculated using a shorter 365-day year than the “average” year of roughly 365.2475 days, you should have come up with a larger number of years in the book, not a smaller one. By my calculations it takes roughly 39,710 365-day years to get to a trillion, which makes sense based on my previous statement that a shorter year will give you a larger result. Your “iPod” appears to be right. So it seems that even that definition doesn’t explain the number in the book.
Either way, it’s technically much more likely to be a “miscalculation,” and not a “typo.” A typo would have resulted in a number that looks close to the right answer but probably has one misplaced or wrong digit. So now you have exposed a “miscalculation” in your book and have “word misuse” on your blog. And is “iPod” really the “typo?” Aren’t you really using your iPhone to do the calculation? Maybe you’d better just stop while you’re ahead and just blame it on that first publisher throwing off your mojo!
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I called it a typo because it was caught before the book went to press and the corrected data was submitted as an adjustment — one of 100s of last minute minor changes done, some more last minute than others. This was one that did not make it into the final version of the book.
If there is a paperback or an expanded and revised version, it will get fixed there
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:09 pm
dayam! this completely messes up my investment strategy.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Barry: What did you do with my 0.088 years?
July 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Just got my copy of Bailout Nation from amazon – love it. Going to send copies out to all my long-suffering friends and relatives whom I have been inundating with emails since this all began in ‘07.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
lol
.. classic
I haven’t done any math on the subject .. was thinking this equation would look good on Einsteins blackboard …
was wondering why 72 years .. is that an average life now? an important person # of years on earth? maybe average years working towards retirement?
the Einstein blackboard should do the calc going from time of the big bailouts to conclusion (if ever) with # of Trillion$ involved transfigured into them years
reading on the calculation .. the corrected number .. should be a slightly smaller number of years .. because the extra day .. after division would do that … so I’m not sure what/where any #s came from
back to the book .. read last week in TBP that the hype tour is still in full swing and was wondering if Chicago is on the bus stop? will check further down and around … still enjoy the blog .. just toning down the care/canfix the squeaky wheel