Our fan Yuri R. S. wrote in to ask, how many pictures are taken every year around the world? Unbelievably, it’s 1 trillion or more (1,000,000,000,000). With almost 7 billion cell phones out there, that’s only about 140 photos per person. The photos stack up fast!
Wee ones: The lens of a camera (where the light goes in) is usually a circle. See if you can spot 3 circle shapes in your room.
Little kids: If you take 1 picture each day this week, how many do you take? Bonus: If you take pictures of 2 people, and each of them takes pictures of 2 people, how many people got to pose for a picture?
Big kids: There are 8 billion people in the world, and 7 billion cell phones. If 2 billion people each had 2 of those phones, how many people would have no phone at all? Bonus: If 300 million Americans each took 10 pictures this week, how many pictures would that come to?
Answers:
Wee ones: Answers might include buttons, shoelace holes, the bottom of a cup, or the face of a clock.
Little kids: 7 pictures. Bonus: 6 people, since you took pictures of 2 and your friends took pictures of 4 more.
Big kids: 3 billion people. The 2 billion people would have 4 billion of the phones, leaving only 3 billion more phones for 3 billion more people. Only 5 billion total would have a phone. Bonus: 3 billion pictures.