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If Vinoba’s mother followed Vinoba’s suggestion, how many days would it take for her to finish the offering?

100 days. 10, 000 divided by 100 = 100 days.

A Vinoba's mother on her knees praying as she makes her offering of rice.

How big is a million?

Sankhya’s mother was getting ready to go to school. She was a geography teacher.“Sankkima, eat your breakfast quickly!” she shouted.

A picture of Sankhya getting ready to go to teach school.

A picture of Sankhya placing her tablets in er school bag.

“Ki-ki, have you finished your homework?” askedSankhya’s father.

A picture of Sankhya putting on her schoolbag.

“S V!” yelled Sankhya’s friend Manjula from the street. Sankhya’s father’s nameis Venkat.

A picture of Sankhya putting on her schoolbag.
“I have a million names!” said Sankhya with a grin, as she got ready to eather breakfast.

Sankhya answers to all the different names she is called by.Numbers too are like Sankhya. They have different names in differentcountries.

What is a million? it is a very big nuber.

  • 10 10 100 . Ten 10s make a hundred
  • 10 100 1000 . Ten 100s make a thousand
  • 100 100 10000 Hundred 100s make ten thousand
  • 100 1000 100000 . Hundred 1,000s make a lakh

But the word lakh is not used in European and American countries. When someone wins a One-lakh lottery, people in these countries would say, “I won hundred thousand!”

A picture of a man from the East and another from the West saying 'one lakh' and 'one hundred thousand' respectively.
1,000 x 1,000 = 1,000,000. Thousand 1,000s make a million . In India, we say 10 lakhs instead of one million.

A picture of a man from the East and another from the West saying angrily to each other 'ten lakhs' and 'one million' respectively.
100 x 100,000 = 10,000,000. One hundred lakhs is called one crore in India.

A picture of a man from the East and another from the West screaming at each other 'one crore' and 'ten million' respectively.
1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000. In America, 1,000 millions are called a billion .

A picture of a man from the East and another from the West grabbing and yelling at each other 'one hundred crore' and 'one thousand million' respectively.
1,000 x 1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000. And a billion is a thousand thousand million in all countries exceptthe United States of America.

A picture of a man from the East and another from the West shaking hands, smiling in agreement, and both saying 'one billion'.
Surprisingly, scientists, whether in India or America mean 1,000 million when they say billion.

Why do we need big numbers?

A picture of a woman asking a young boy how far his school is.
When someone asks you how far your school is from yourhouse you may say, “Very far.”

A picture of a man asking a young boy how far his school is.
To a stranger asking for directions to the school, you would probablysay, “Five kilometres, Sir.”

A picture of a smiling sun looking down on the earth.
The Sun is 300,000 times heavier than the Earth. To write the massof the Sun in tonnes you need to write 2 followed by 27 zeroes.



Numbers help us to understand the world around us better.

A picture of starburst.
Scientists say the universe was formed because of a ‘Big Bang’.

15 billion years ago there was a small super hot, super dense, ball offire.

The ball was less than 1cm wide. Suddenly, the ball exploded.

A picture of starburst.

The ball was less than 1cm wide. Suddenly, the ball exploded.

In less then a millionth of a second, it grew to ahuge ball, 16 billion km across.

A picture of galaxy.

In the next million years, the exploded pieces became colder and formed galaxies.

A picture of the earth and the sun.
The Earth, Moon and Sun belong to a galaxy called the Milky Way.

A picture of the stars in the galaxy.
They were born less than 5 billion years ago.

There are 200 billion stars in ourgalaxy.

A picture of the solar system.
Our Sun is one of them. Earth is one of the nine planets movingaround our Sun

A picture of children holding hands atop planet Earth.
And the Earth has 6,525,170,264 people.

A picture of an Indian child holding hands with two others atop planet Earth.
You are one of 1,095,351,995 people living in India!

Everyone in thier place

A picture of the Principal of Aryanagar Vidayamandir.
The Principal of Aryanagar Vidyamandir is very strict. He insists that students standin their specified places during morning assembly.

A picture of Ramjit smiling amongst fellow students.
Ranjit, a class 4 student, always stood in the fourth row fromthe right side of the hall.

One day, he got into the sixth row, where all the Class 6 students stood. He felt veryimportant. He also felt very scared that the principal would seek him out and punishhim.

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Source:  OpenStax, Class. OpenStax CNX. Dec 24, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11261/1.3
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