At the time of this book's printing, the U.S. national debt is about $10 trillion. Note: Before doing these calculations, try to guess at the answers. You may be very surprised.
(a) If payments were made at the rate of $2 000 per second, how many years would it take to pay off the debt, assuming no interest were charged?
(b) A dollar bill is about 15.5 cm long. How many dollar bills attached end to end would it take to reach the Moon? The Earth-Moon distance is 3.48*10^8 m.