Fun facts about really big numbers

* If the founders of Google had been better spellers, the company would have been called "Googol." They meant to give the company the exact same name as the word for 10¹⁰⁰ -- no wordplay was intended.

* A googolplex is 1^googol, and a googolplexian is 1^googolplex. The googolplexian is the largest number with a special name.

* To realize what a huge number 1 googol really is, it's estimated that there are far fewer atoms -- 10⁸⁰ -- in the observable universe.

* Another way to look at it is if you were to begin counting at the big bang, one number per second, you'd only be at (4.354±0.012)×10¹⁷ right now.

* "Billion" used to only mean "one-thousand-million" in American English; the British term denoted what is now called a "trillion" until the mid 1970s. The older British term was "milliard."

* In 1946, Hungary printed a 1 sextillion pengo note, the highest-value banknote ever printed. Though Zimbabwe printed a 100 trillion-dollar banknote in 2009, it was only worth around $30 U.S. at the time.

* This gigantic block of dancing Homers:



... really only contains 1,000 dancing Homers.

(See, eddie -- I told you a use for all of these smilies would eventually become obvious ...)

my brain aches now

my brain aches now

Cass wrote:my brain aches now

That's what numbers are for!

Really big numbers are only really big to really small people.  

Original Quill wrote:Really big numbers are only really big to really small people.  

Don't you know nothin'? It's all right to be little-bitty. Alan Jackson said.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2OIUpWznY

(Categorically one of the best modern country songs, by the way)

Same message.

Incidentally, how big is Alan Jackson?  I seem to remember he wrote about small people because he had to overcome that precise challenge himself.

Ooops...I looked it up.  He's 6-foot 4-inches.  Never mind.

Anyway there are two uses for the metaphor 'small people'.  There are those who make themselves small by being a disappointment.  Then there are those who meet and overcome challenges...who become big people despite having a small stature.

I knew what you meant, I just saw my opening and took it

Ben.

How do I say this politely?

Hmmmm.

Erm.

Fuck off.
I just wasted 30 googlegolbollocks seconds of my life reading that!


But you can never have too many Homers though so.....

Sorry edds, you know how I enjoy acting like a milliard. (Don't know, it sounds insulting to me)

eddie wrote:Ben.

How do I say this politely?

Hmmmm.

Erm.

Fuck off.
I just wasted 30 googlegolbollocks seconds of my life reading that!


But you can never have too many Homers though so.....

I prefer doughnuts meself.......

Then have all the doughnuts in the world!!!

Ben_Reilly wrote:Then have all the doughnuts in the world!!!

Yeaaaahhhh baby

Here's a nice list of big number names http://home.kpn.nl/vanadovv/BignumbyN.html

Another fun fact is that if you add up every positive integer, you get negative one-twelfth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_2_%2B_3_%2B_4_%2B_%E2%8B%AF

Caution wrote:Here's a nice list of big number names http://home.kpn.nl/vanadovv/BignumbyN.html

Another fun fact is that if you add up every positive integer, you get negative one-twelfth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_2_%2B_3_%2B_4_%2B_%E2%8B%AF

It's that kind of stuff that makes me suspect they've just started to make stuff up now ...