This happened a while ago but I didn’t have my own blog so you will hear about it now. I wrote a song called “A Billion Pennies.” The following is how the song got its name and why I even wrote a song about such a topic.
As I was sitting at my day job desk I suddenly became aware of the abundance of pennies on my desk. We had a cafe downstairs and every morning I would go to get a milk for my cereal. And everyday I would pay the 59 cents and get a penny back. So three months later I had quite the collection. As I sat there quietly I speculated at the total number of pennies that were in circulation. I guessed that there could be a billion. (I later realized this number was far too small but I decided to keep the song the same.) My mind, as you know from previous posts, likes to work on its own. I was soon plagued with the need for the knowledge of how long it would take to count such a pile. (I also realize that there is, in fact, no reason to count the pennies when we have already established the fact that there are a billion pennies in this particular stack.) I conservatively estimated that perhaps a human could count 120 pennies per minute. You are probably reaching for your penny jar to test this theory but allow me one further comment before you look for the stop watch. In order for one to count this enormous stack of pennies one would need to pace ones self. Now you can try to beat 120/min if you still feel the need. Anyway I calculated how long it would take you if you counted 24/7 or if you counted for a 40 hour work week (which I would prefer.) Here are the figures:
Counting 24/7 at a rate of 120 pennies/min would take you 15.85 years
Counting 40 hours/week at a rate of “ would take you 66.77 years
So anyway the chorus of my song is about the billion pennies and how many you can count in a minute. Then each verse is the two different counting times. I think it is an awesome song concept but you may think I’m an idiot. The beautiful part about it is I don’t really care either way. Leave me a comment if you have one.