A neat site to visualize numbers

While musing about the list in the last post I got to thinking about large numbers. The site linked below lets you see how big the pile of pennies would be for various numbers. It's best if you step up from size to size. Seeing the trillion penny cube made me wonder how much copper the world produces. Which turns out to be a lot, about enough to make five of those trillion penny cubes each year. That, in turn, got me to thinking about steel, and I found that the world produces enough steel each year to make a bit less than half of the quadrillion penny cube.

http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/

And, after looking at the piles of pennies, you can go to this site to let this pretty interesting guy tell you all about the events of his life as delineated by his collection of smashed pennies. Be sure to click on one of the pennies at the bottom of the page or else on one of the state names on the left of the page. Way back in his youth he started to collect smashed pennies. Then at some point, it seems, the smashed pennies started collecting him. But, all in all, he's still sort of normal; probably about as normal as me.

http://www.anythreewords.com/pennies/index.php