Translating Big Numbers So Readers Can Understand Them

“Here’s a quick quiz. Try to answer this question immediately, without doing any calculating. If a stack of gold coins worth one billion dollars would stretch from one end of a football field to the other, how far would a stack worth one million dollars stretch? The answer: three and a half inches; one billion is one thousand million, 300 feet divided by one thousand is 3.6 inches.”