Really Big Numbers

Really big numbers are awesome. Most people are familiar with really big numbers, and can come up with a couple on the fly. What makes big numbers interesting, though, is that when they get really big, we lose understanding of how big they are. The amount just gets abstracted into "a lot." This makes statistics a lot less effective for some people, and understanding big numbers can help many to visualize worldly events.

For example, take a googol. It's a widely known "really big number," just 10^100. It's a one with a hundred zeroes at the end. But, can we understand how big that really is? For reference, the number of atoms in the entire known universe is about 10^79. How does that compare? Initially, our brains compare the 79 with the 100, since we can envision these values.

In reality, like some of you probably know, if we subtracted 10^79 from 10^100, it would barely make a difference. It would still be about 10^100. And if we subtracted a millon times 10^79 from 10^100, it would barely make a difference. And if we subtracted a billion from 10^79 from 10^100, it would barely make a difference. The number would still be about 10^100, unless you like to measure everything to 11 significant digits. In fact, in order to make an inarguably measurable impact, you'd have to subtract a billion times a billion times 10^79.

There's something missing here. How big is 10^79? Ack.

Or how about a billion, even? It's not just the impossibly big numbers we should be having trouble with- can anyone visualize a million easily? It's not as big, so we should easily be able to figure out a way to do it.

Just for kicks, here's a visualization method my had to implement in the 4th grade. Go into a word processor, make a new document. Pick your favorite symbol. Now, take this favorite symbol and type it 10 times. Copy what you have and paste it 9 more times. Copy that and paste it 9 more times. Copy that and paste it 9 more times. Copy that and paste it 9 more times. Copy that and paste it 9 more times. Copy that and paste it 9 more times. Now you have a million!

Holy crap.

Here's a much sadder version of this activity. The creators of this image used a very effective technique to get their statistic across, and it's more hard-hitting than even the largest number I can describe. (Each of these people had a mother.)

That's about 6% of all the chickens that die every day in the U.S. for consumption. Just sayin'.

Just in, you shed about 50 million skin cells in a day. Those 50 million things were a part of your body, working in conjunction with billions of other little tiny cells to keep you alive. Around the same amount are being born, too. We're like a huge ecosystem for so many little critters.

We instinctively see that "50," and think "50 times a million... that's a lot." But, for reference, take that word processing sheet of a million characters, and multiply THAT by 50. That's how many skin cells you lose. Every single day. Every. Single. Day. Wow.

Anyone have any interesting big numbers, or ways to visualize them?