Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
10,000,000
dollars
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
Picture a banded movie stack of $100 bills: 100 bills, so $10,000. It's about the size of a deck of cards. How heavy is that? Maybe a quarter pound.
- Banded stack, $10,000
- ~1/4 lb
- 220 lb × 4
- ≈ 880 stacks
- 880 × $10,000
- ≈ $8,800,000
Picture a banded movie stack of $100 bills: 100 bills, so $10,000. It's about the size of a deck of cards. How heavy is that? Maybe 100 grams.
- Banded stack, $10,000
- ~100 g
- 100 kg ÷ 100 g
- ≈ 1,000 stacks
- 1,000 × $10,000
- ≈ $10,000,000
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- Weight of any US banknote (BEP)
- ≈ 1 g
- 100 kg ÷ 1 g
- 100,000 bills
- 100,000 × $100
- = $10,000,000
Reference cited by Fermi: US Bureau of Engraving and Printing: every US banknote, whatever the denomination, weighs about 1 gram
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