Musk and his trillion and John O’Gorman’s Punt yarn

The news that Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire  has people trying to understand how much it means.

One trillion equals 1,000 billion. One million seconds in the past is less than two weeks ago, but a billion seconds puts us in 1994, and a trillion seconds goes back to approximately 29,000 BC, predating recorded history.

The late Dominican John O’Gorman, who was a mathematician and taught computer science at the University of Limerick, often told the following story about Dominicans, numbers and money: If a Dominican asked his prior for £10o the prior would put him through the ringer, asking him all sorts of questions why he wanted the money and what he would do with it. On the other hand, if the brother asked for £1,000 the prior would most likely give it to him without asking a question.

And, guess what, there is an element of truth to John’s story.

The euro became legal tender in Ireland in January 2002, John died in November of that year. He told the story during the life of the Punt.

Talking about numbers; this blog began in 2007 and in that span of time it has had 3.44 million hits.

Is there any digital Irish Dominican publication that can compete with that?

Money spent on this blog is€/£0.00.