The book Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud has a great table that illustrates just how enormous these time differentials are. Just translate computer time into arbitrary seconds:
1 CPU cycle 0.3 ns 1 s
Level 1 cache access 0.9 ns 3 s
Level 2 cache access 2.8 ns 9 s
Level 3 cache access 12.9 ns 43 s
Main memory access 120 ns 6 min
Solid-state disk I/O 50-150 ?s 2-6 days
Rotational disk I/O 1-10 ms 1-12 months
Internet: SF to NYC 40 ms 4 years
Internet: SF to UK 81 ms 8 years
Internet: SF to Australia 183 ms 19 years
OS virtualization reboot 4 s 423 years
SCSI command time-out 30 s 3000 years
Hardware virtualization reboot 40 s 4000 years
Physical system reboot 5 m 32 millenia
