How long would it take a computer to count to one trillion?

Answer 1

That depends on many, many factors, and has no one correct answer. The speed of the computer, the language used for the code that does the counting, even the temperature of the room, and many other things, will affect the time taken.

For example, using an old computer, I wrote a simple program in C that counts to a billion (not a trillion):

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void){

int n;

for(n = 0; n < 1000000000; n++);

return 0;

}

and it took 3.535 seconds to run, which means that if it counted up to a trillion, it would have been roughly 3535 seconds, or just under an hour.

On the other hand, I wrote a similar program in PHP, and ran it on a faster machine:

#!/usr/bin/php

<?php

for($n = 0; $n < 1000000000; $n++);

and it took 163.898 seconds, which would go up to about 46 hours, or just under two days if It counted to a trillion. That increase in time was despite the fact that the latter test was done on a faster machine. The difference is due to the way the language is processed on the computer. As stated then, there is no one answer to this question.