A Conversation for The Size of Things

No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 1

Vestboy

That's a pretty nifty entry. You didn't even refer to the ubiquitous (in statistical explanatory type terms) to the double decker bus's worth of anything or anything the size of Belgium (or Wales). smiley - applause


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 2

Rod

Thanks Vestboy.
Well, you wouldn't get many Belgiums in a double-decker bus - or whales, even.

The numbers qays of explaining it all are incomprehensible without at least trying to estimate the number of zeros & still they stay incomprehensible. While some of those visual efforts are pretty nifty, my screen isn't big enough (!).

So, there's got to be a better way, eh? Unfortunately, after not seeing it for a month or three, this way doesn't mean much either - and I wrote the damn thing!


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 3

Vestboy

I really liked it. You didn't write the explanation of a Googol did you? I really liked that one, based on the little silver balls people use to decorate cakes. Though that one assumes you know how big the universe is because it asks you to mentally fill it with these balls and destriy them and refill every second for several thousand years...
I didn't ask who the supplier of the little balls would be or where they would put my house while all this filling was going on but it was still impressive.


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 4

Rod

I've just refreshed on googol and remembered reading that the term was invented by a child, googolplex too.
What I didn't know but began to wonder since your post (and happily accept), is that Google is based on it - nice.

I suppose we all ponder on it all from time to time and it seems to me that the only way to treat it is in a matter-of-fact manner while acknowledging everyone else's comparable ignorance - and while also looking around surreptitiously just in case someone is wearing smug.


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 5

Vestboy

Infinity is pretty mindblowing and I was thrown by the idea that there are different sized infinities. E.g. how many subdivisions are there between 0 and 1? An infinite number. So the same question asked between 0 and 2 gives an infinity which is twice the size. smiley - weird


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 6

Rod

Now, now, Vestboy - stop being naughty. You know very well that infinity is one-size-fits-all and that size is inbloodycomprebloodyhensibull.


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 7

Vestboy

So does it exist?


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 8

Rod

Well, look at it this way smiley - cdouble

If it exists then it's bigger than you and me both and to my mind it's preferable as a choice of something to believe in than some other things that people choose to believe in that are also supposedly bigger than you and me and them and all.

Hows about that for a sentence?


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 9

Vestboy

Do you mean... G-g-g-gravity?


No Belgiums or Double-decker buses

Post 10

Rod


(Sentenced to g-gravity - a c-common experience.)

S-s'pose if ye've n-nothing else to hold you back while waiting for a nice c-comfyternal hole in the earth, then w-well, m-m-mebbe.


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