Among Other Things: Numbers are relative things

A lot of folks seem to like the stories that numbers tell … or don't tell.

Politicians kick numbers around to give scenarios that may be pleasing to voters. Their opponents often take the same numbers and make them tell an entirely different story.

Numbers can be a relative thing — f'rinstance, the length of one minute, just 60 seconds, depends on which side of the bathroom door you're standing.

The late John Dutzar used numbers to illustrate man's relative insignificance when compared to the universe. He said that if all of the world's population (estimated at 3 billion in 1960) were packed into a one cubic mile-size box, one could lose it in the vastness of the Grand Canyon of Arizona.

By 1985 the population had increased to around 4.5 billion, and was predicted to hit 6 billion by the year 2000. As a result of coffee break conversation in 1985, Ken Moase did some figuring to prove or disprove Dutzar's theory.

Moase figured that there are 147,197,952,000 cubic feet in a cubic mile. If the average body occupies 8 cubic feet of space, an estimated 4.5 billion population would occupy about 36 billion cubic feet.

One quarter cubic mile, Moase said, equals 36,799,480,000 cubic feet, well within the scope of Dutzar's theory.

Heck, even at today's figures, it looks like the theory is still good.

Won't happen, though; an environmental impact study wouldn't permit it.

Author James Michener in his novel "Space" writes that as we sleep, our galaxy moves in relation to all other galaxies in six different directions at an accumulated speed of probably 2.5 million miles an hour. No wonder we're tired when we wake up in the morning.

Sometimes a 50 mph wind gust can nearly knock you off your pins. But scientists say that Earth rotates and rockets though space at 860 mph but has no effect. I don't know about that. Some days it's a struggle to keep from falling off.

Here's another number we can all easily understand. In school we learned that 100 cents equals $1. Now government economists tell us the dollar is worth only 37 cents — or less.

I recall a cautionary note in this column in 1998 when I wrote, "Can't help but take this talk about a balanced budget or an actual surplus … with a grain of salt, The balance will soon be out of whack if we get into a shooting war with Iraq."

Finally, when you get tired of prolonged hot spells this summer, just read the temperatures on the Celsius scale. At least it won't sound as warm.