Easy math puzzles

The U.S. debt is measured in trillions of dollars.

Could a New York Times reporter have written about this story one trillion seconds ago?

As seen from the surface of earth, the sun and the moon appear to be the same size. The sun is actually 400 times larger than the moon.

How far away from earth is the sun compared to how far away the moon is?

The board game Magic Realm has an unusual dice mechanic. Two standard six-sided dice are rolled, but only the higher of the two numbers acts as the result.

For example:
A 1-6 would = 6
A 3-4 would = 4
A 2-2 would = 2

What is the probability of getting a result of 5?

1. No. That comes to 31,710 years. I doubt there was a concept or term for numbers that big back then. Interesting thought.
2. If "size" is measured as volume, then I get 40^(1/3) =~ 7.368 times as far away.
3. 9/36 = 1/4.

It's very easy Monday.

Time: there are 86,400 < 100,000 seconds per day, and 365.25 or so < 400 days per year, so there are < 40 million seconds per year, which means there are < 40 million x 25,000, or < 1 trillion, seconds in 25,000 years. Since the NYT was not around 25,000 years ago, it could not have reported on anything 1 trillion seconds ago.

Space: assuming the diameter of the sun is 400 times the diameter of the moon, it must be 400 times as far from Earth as the moon in order for the two to appear to be the same size. Think of the diameter of each as the far end of an isosceles triangle; you have two similar triangles.

Dice: of the 36 possible rolls of 2 dice, 11 of them (1-5 through 4-5, and 5-1 through 5-5) have the highest number 5, so the probability is 11/36.
Side note: you would think that, given how many games printed by the old Avalon Hill Game Company have been reprinted by other companies since its demise around 25 years ago, this one would have been reprinted at least once, but it has not.