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A Million Dollars vs A Billion Dollars, Visualized: A Road Trip

Tom Scott | September 11, 2025



There are lots of ways to compare a million to a billion, but most of them use volume. And I think that’s a mistake, because volume just isn’t something the human brain is great at. So instead, here’s the difference between a million and a billion, in a more one-dimensional way: distance.

REFERENCES:
Humphrey Yang’s rice TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@humphreytalks/video/6798276393634467077
and his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/HumphreyYang

The Corridor Crew billion video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbVb63qPDQ8

FAQ:
Q: Is this accurate?
A: Yes. The GPS track on the GoPro wasn’t great, though, so the walking sections had to be manually smoothed out. For the main car drive, I relied on a backup GPS tracker taking a sample every 1 second. That data was loaded into an After Effects expression, set to $1 per 0.1093mm. If it couldn’t pick up a GPS reading (for example, in the Chestfield Tunnel), it waited until signal returned and then calculated an average speed for the gap. There was one correction: during a stop next to a large lorry, the GPS lost tracking and wandered about 50m in a random pattern while the car was completely at a halt. Those errors were removed.

Q: Why is this in 50fps?
A: The electricity grid in the UK runs at 50Hz, which means that you can get strobing effects from lighting. Normally that wouldn’t matter on something filmed outside, and I’d go with 60fps, but I didn’t want to risk full-screen strobing in the tunnel section. (You do still see strobing on some variable message signs, but that’s for different technical reasons.) As 24/25fps feels too slow and jerky for a continuous dashcam shot, this was the best option.

Q: Why did you do this with American dollars in the UK?
A: The Bank of England doesn’t produce a £1 note. The smallest paper money we have is £5. (The Royal Bank of Scotland, and the banks of some of the Channel Islands, do though!) And while it would have been apt to do this along desert roads in California, sometimes you’ve got to make do with what’s available.

Q: What was that “oops” about a minute into the drive?
A: I nearly turned left one junction too soon, which would have sent me to a closed barrier and ruined the take.

Q: Why do you change lanes so much?
A: In the UK, the “correct” thing to do is to always switch to the leftmost possible lane after overtaking on a motorway, unless there’s another car you’ll have to overtake soon or you’re approaching a slip road. This means you have to change lanes a lot more than in many other countries. Source: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/driving-advice/middle-lane-hogging/

Q: You pass a van on the left at one point. Is that legal?
A: Deliberately passing on the left (“undertaking”) in the UK is considered dangerous driving on non-motorways and in free-flowing motorway traffic. However, in congestion when traffic is slowed down, keeping up with traffic in your lane is fine. Source: https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q891.htm

Q: What do those white signs with a black stripe mean?
A: “National speed limit applies”. On dual carriageways (“divided highways”), that means 70mph; on other roads, it’s lower. Alas, it does not mean “no speed limit” like it does on the German autobahn.

Q: What do the signs with the white C in a red circle mean?
A: Those are reminders about the Dart Charge, the £2.50 toll for crossing the Thames at Dartford.

Q: How many attempts did this take?
A: Three. Attempt one was ruined by the time of day: I was travelling east in the morning — so all the camera could see was glare from the sun and the dashboard reflected in the windscreen. Attempt two was ruined by the camera overheating shortly after the Dartford Crossing. (That’s why this is in 2.7k, not 4k, and why you can hear wind noise from the air conditioning blowing over the camera to keep it cool.)

Q: How can this be an FAQ when you wrote it before the video went live?
A: In this case, “FAQ” stands for “Fully Anticipated Questions”.

Q: What’s your route?
00:00 Introduction
02:14 Leaving Dagenham
06:03 A13 Eastbound
12:43 Mar Dyke Interchange
14:26 A282
16:07 Queen Elizabeth II Bridge
20:50 A2 Eastbound
30:16 M2 Eastbound
53:36 Thanet Way Eastbound
1:08:09 A28 towards Margate
1:12:09 Local roads towards Margate
1:14:39 Ah good, the sea
1:17:29 Conclusion

🟥 MORE FROM TOM: https://www.tomscott.com/
(you can find contact details and social links there too)

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Written by Tom Scott

Comments

This post currently has 37 comments.

  7. @sami2503

    September 11, 2025 at 6:11 am

    And the people who's wealth ends after a step or two have been manipulated to vote for parties that give tax breaks to people with wealth of multiples of his hour drive. Depressing.

  9. @EverythingSim07

    September 11, 2025 at 6:11 am

    tom, why did you choose to drive from dagenham to round the corner from my actual house in westgate of all places? the beach you went to is st mildreds bay and i live 3 mins from there. scary 😂

  11. @LREditing-f6n

    September 11, 2025 at 6:11 am

    FUN FACT: the billion in spanish (billón) is bigger than in english because in spanish we are still counting them as millions until it reaches a million of a million (a trillion in english). so we actually call the english billion "a thousand millions"

  22. @LaggardlySort

    September 11, 2025 at 6:11 am

    This video really loses a lot of its punch when you remember that the person who created it is himself extremely wealthy in comparison to the average household, and made several annual salaries through this video alone 🤡

  26. @ProfessorBeautiful

    September 11, 2025 at 6:11 am

    60% of Americans who need to tap emergency savings need more than a thousand dollars.

    Most can't handle it; they lose jobs, medical care, and much more.
    A thousand dollars would be 4 and a half inches.

    A billion is a lot, an hour's driving, but Musk would be driving for DAYS.

  37. @raiynen

    September 11, 2025 at 6:11 am

    $1000 is a considerable sum to the average person, and getting or losing that much when it's not expected can have a massive impact on someone's life. You can push 3 orders of magnitude with time and effort, if $1000 is your baseline, That gets you to 1 million. 1 billion is 6 orders of magnitude larger. No amount of time, no amount of effort can let you push to 6 orders of magnitude above your baseline. You can spend an entire lifetime trying to push 4 orders of magnitude above your baseline, and that only gets you to 1% of 1 billion.

Comments are closed.

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