Did you know? Mass of an adult male Polar Bear (800 kg) is 50 x Mass of a case of 12 bottles of wine (16 kg)
Is That A Big Number? is now a book, and published by Oxford University Press in July 2018. This page provides all the web links listed in the "Back of the Book" section.
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-intro
Carl Sagan explains how Eratosthenes calculated the size of the world
Samuel Pepys begins his diary
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-count
US Census Bureau population clock
Feynman on thinking
Article on counting fish in the sea from International Council for Exploration of the Seas
Estimate of fish biomass
Online subitising test at cognitivefun.net
Guardian article on Daniel Tammet, an autistic savant
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-numeracy
99% Invisible podcast: The Two Fates of the Old East Portico
ResearchGate: Some acoustical properties of St Paul's Cathedral, London
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-length
Aztec anthropic units
Kevin F's project to build the Empire State Building in Lego
All about the scale used for Lego minifigs
The Spartathon running race
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-time
Vox article on Antikythera mechanism
Swatch Internet time in .beats
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-volume
NewGeography.com article on urban density
Discussion on oil reserves
BP article on oil tankers
Metrics on rainfall
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-mass
Article on the Curtiss Helldiver aeroplane
Live Science article on Sherpa Guides
National Physical Laboratory article on weighing
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-speed
Brit Lab video: can a falling penny kill you?
Danger levels for sound volume
Musical note frequencies
Wikiversity article on Moore's law and Intel processors
Data on Moore's law
UK Office of National Statistics mortality tables
Antiquark: Online slide rule simulation
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-astro
Powers of Ten: video using log-scale logic to show the scale of the universe
The Cavendish experiment to weigh the world
SkyMarvels: video showing the dance of the Earth and the Moon about their barycentre
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-energy
List of energy densities
Blacksmiths' guide to colours of glowing steel
Ignition points
Our World In Data guide to energy production
Sandia Analysis of potential of solar energy
Worldwide energy consumption
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-info
Mashable explanation of Google's enumeration of all the books in the world
File Catalyst: media file sizes
How much data does NSA's data centre hold?
Zachary Booth Simpson: Vocabulary Analysis of Project Gutenberg
Commonplacebook.com: word count for famous novels
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-maths
Wait But Why: A great attempt at explaining the construction of Graham's number
Optimap website will solve the travelling salesman problem for a small number of nodes
Numberphile (a very worthwhile series of YouTube videos) on Infinity
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-money
OECD economic data
Research and development spending by country
Bank of England: UK Inflation calculator
US Treasury: stats on US national debt
US Inflation calculator
Quiz Web link: http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-pop
Index Mundi: Protected areas over time
World Population History: Map-based presentation
United Nations: World population prospects report
World Bank: Map of protected areas
The Millions: Essay on John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar
http://IsThatABigNumber.com/link/q-quality
The Stealth ride at Thorpe Park, UK
The outstanding "Our World In Data" website on inequality
Our World In Data
CIA Factbook
Gapminder
World Bank
OECD
ONS
XKCD
"This is a fun and riveting book. Written in an accessible and engaging way, it is unputdownable." Frost Magazine
Click here to learn more about it.
Click here for Podcast: Andrew Elliott interviewed for New Books Network.