Recall: You have these 50 billion hamburgers and for some reason (probably because I asked last time) you were wondering about how high a tower would be if they could all be carefully (very carefully) stacked one upon the other. 

We will need to begin with some simplifying assumptions. First, how thick is a burger? That is debatable, but I will use 1/4 inch; thus, a stack of 4 make an inch, and so 12 X 4 (or 48) make a 1-foot tower. 

That seems a bit messy, so, again for simplicity, let us throw in two more burgers for a 50-burger stack required to construct a rather unimpressive 1-foot tower. Thus, we have a fine nonstandard equation that you probably missed in school: 

1 foot = 50 burgers. Vroom, things are now moving!

Next, for some ridiculous reason (probably related to the foot size of an early king of England) 5,280 feet make 1 mile (Go metric!). 

So, 1 mile of burgers = 5,280 feet/mile x 50 burgers/foot or 262,500 burgers/mile. 

That is more than 1/4 million burgers in a mile-high stack! Still, we have 50,000,000,000 to work with as well as helicopters that may be anxiously waiting to engage in the job of stacking. Thus, we have arrived at a second nonstandard equation: 

1 mile = 262,500 burgers

So how many miles in a 50 billion burger stack? 

“Simply” divide: 50,000,000,000 by 262,500 ≈ 190,476 miles. 

That is ≈ 190,000 miles (to the nearest thousand miles of burgers), for a 50 billion burger stack (like coins), straight up! That is more than 3/4 of the distance from Earth to the moon. It is way above the International Space Station, which orbits the earth at a paltry 250 miles. (Just imagine the look on astronauts’ faces as our burger stack grew past them and beyond, into the void of space!) 

Our math calculations are not such a challenge, but it would be a rather serious technical task for engineers and burger stackers. For some perspective, Mount Everest is about 6 miles high and offers many life-threatening challenges to humans, way up there where the air is too thin for helicopters to fly and humans can only barely breathe.

Hopefully, not lost in these messy details is the enormousness of 50 billion burgers, or 50 billion of almost anything.

Some speculative insights: if Musk could launch his “Starship” to the moon from the height of such a burger tower, the trip would require only limited fuel consumption, and since there is barely any gravity in space, the engines employed would not need to be very powerful. Maybe the DOGE amateur experts should vacate the Social Security Administration and investigate this “efficiency” possibility for space travel. Maybe Musk will attempt to build a similar burger tower? Someone should ask.

Lastly, a similar calculation for a line composed of 50 billion burgers:

Assume 4 aligned burgers = 1 foot, 5,280 feet/mile yields: 5,280 x 4 = 21,120 burgers/mile and as previously, we divide the 50 billion by 21,120 to arrive at the number of miles in our burger line: 

50,000,000,000/21,120 = 2,367,424 miles ≈ 2,367,000 miles (nearest thousand miles)

Such a chain of burgers would circle the earth at the equator more than 94 times! Or perhaps more in keeping with our moon considerations, allow nearly five round trips to the moon!

Coda

As a proponent of nuclear disarmament, an alternative to a nuclear arsenal might be a “burger arsenal.” Consider that 50 billion burgers dropped on any major city might wreck similar damage as would a nuclear strike, but crucially without the radioactive fallout. In this case, I will leave it to those interested as to how deep the burger mass might rest over any unfortunately targeted city (or burg). Hopefully, humans will never come to such a catastrophe. Perhaps Burger Assured Destruction (BAD) could bring lasting peace?

John Pace, a retired math professor, lives in Honesdale, PA. He writes on Substack at John in the Woods.