‘Rithmetic Is Getting Harder
Little did Richard Feynman know when he made his humorous observation how bad things were going to get:
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
No, we have not discovered more planets. It is economics, or rather politics that creates the need for larger numbers. Printing money ensures that our numbering system will grow. In words attributed to Ludwig von Mises:
Government is the only agency which can take a useful commodity like paper, slap some ink on it, and make it totally worthless.
How many of these numbers will our grandchildren know in their lifetimes?
A comment by uno to an article on Zerohedge
on
Tue, 03/23/2010 – 15:49#273684
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1,000 X 1 billion = 1 trillion (1012)
1,000 X 1 trillion = 1 quadrillion (1015)
1,000 X 1 quadrillion = 1 quintillion (1018)
1,000 X 1 quintillion = 1 sextillion (1021)
1,000 X 1 sextillion = 1 septillion (1024)
1,000 X 1 septillion = 1 octillion (1027)
1,000 X 1 octillion = 1 nonillion (1030)
1,000 X 1 nonillion = 1 decillion (1033)
1,000 X 1 decillion = 1 undecillion (1036)
1,000 X 1 undecillion = 1 duodecillion (1039)
Other very large numbers are:
One googol = 10100
One googolplex = 10googol
One googolplexian = 10googolplex