Humans are horrible at visualizing large numbers. And by large numbers, I mean anything over four or five. Quick, how many F’s are there at the end of this sentence? F F F F F F F Six? Seven? Eight? You probably can’t tell me unless you count them individually or guess correctly.
One of the smartest things the Bush administration did (for PR purposes at least) was to ban pictures of flag draped coffins returning home from Iraq. Instead, the public is left with meaningless numbers that they can't visualize. What’s the difference between 3792 and 3972? 2478 and 3967? 1578 and 4322? Absolutely nothing if you’re just reading about it in the paper.
Follow me below the fold as I try to show what 3792 looks like using common everyday items.
First, we’ll start small. Reach into your pocket and pull out a few pennies. What do you have? Three?
If you had a penny in your pocket for every service member who died in Iraq, you had better be wearing a good sturdy belt along with a pair of suspenders. 3792 pennies weighs around 20 lbs and makes a pile that looks like this:
Paperclips? A pile of 3792 small ones look like this:
Next time you wash your hands, take a look at your towel. See those tiny little twisty fibers? There are 3792 of them in a space slightly larger than your palm. Go take a close look.
Getting ready to pay your bills? You’ll probably need stamps. Postage for the condolence letters that Rumsfeld couldn’t be bothered to sign would tile a standard desk - twice.
If you had a single roll of 3792 stamps and unrolled it along the edge of a football field, it would stretch roughly 262 feet. A football player who intercepted a pass on his 12 yard line would have to run those 262 feet to score. So when you’re watching football this weekend, take a stamp to the bar with you. As you watch the game, look at your stamp and then look at how long 87 yards is.
I like to read, so I grabbed some paperback books. 3792 pages looks like this:
But of course, the text is printed on both sides of the page. 3792 sheets of paper looks more like this:
Continuing on, 3792 books looks like this:
Going to the gym? Try curling 3792 lbs. That’s 95 reps with a 20lb dumbbell in each hand.
Let’s take it outside. I live about a mile from a decent sized mall. If 3792 people parked there, it would take up quite a bit of parking.
My guess is that the mall would be extremely happy if there were 3792 cars in their parking lot.
Those 3792 lived in houses. 3792 houses fill an area of suburbia about this big:
Since we’re looking at larger and larger things, how long is 3792 miles? It probably takes you 3 to 4 months to dive it normally. If you wanted to do it all at once you could take a road trip to get a Cuban coffee in Miami and fresh brewed tea in Portland with a stop off in Atlanta and New Orleans. It would only take about 150 gallons of gas and 55 hours to make the trip.
So now you have an idea of what 3792 looks like. Wouldn’t it be nice if our members of Congress did as well? I always thought that if every serviceman killed in Iraq was required to lie in state for 24 hours in the Capital building Rotunda, the war would be over and done with by now.
Actually, that would be a great protest if a DC area organization would stet up flag draped boxes every day near where Congress enters and exits the building. Congress could use a daily reminder of what 5 here and 8 there looks like.
Since you probably do not live in the DC area, let’s go back to those pennies and paperclips...
I would love to send every member of Congress 3792 of something to show them what it looks like. Especially the Democrats. They need a reminder of what their ongoing inability to say NO to Bush and the Republicans looks like.
My two senators are Republicans, so they’re getting paperclips since they both suck. I’d rather send them 3792 vacuum cleaners, but that’s out of my budget. 3792 paperclips and a flat rate priority box = $23.47 per jackass.
With a little reinforcement tape on the inside; the 3792 pennies and a little note are going to be a donation to my favorite candidate. Total cost including postage = $46.87.
Care to join me? Use the comments section below to pledge to send 3792 pennies or 3792 paperclips to your members of Congress along with a note explaining why they’re getting what they’re getting. If you like them, they get the pennies. If you don’t, they get the paperclips. If you are on a budget, send them 3792 grains of dry rice (slightly less than 1/2 cup). Cost = 5 postage stamps + rice.
Oh and one more little demonstration of 3792... This diary has exactly 3792 characters in it, including punctuation, but not including spaces.