{"id":88,"date":"2006-07-31T10:19:25","date_gmt":"2006-07-31T04:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/daveandyvonne.com\/davintosh\/?p=88"},"modified":"2006-07-31T10:19:25","modified_gmt":"2006-07-31T04:49:25","slug":"really-big-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/2006\/07\/31\/really-big-numbers\/fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Really Big Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everybody knows what to call big numbers when it comes to a dozen or so digits, but what about when the numbers get bigger than that? I was reading an article on Damn Interesting<\/a> about the physical difficulties in folding a piece of paper, and tried to figure out how long a piece of paper would be needed to make 51 folds (which is impossible, by the way.) It’d take a lot<\/em> of paper. 164,888,007,565,194,000,000,000 miles of paper to be (reasonably) exact.
\nThat got me to thinking how a number that large would be expressed. There’s always powers of ten, which would make that number 1.659×10\u00b2\u00b3. That works out to be But that doesn’t really do much for me. And I started wondering what that number would sound like when expressed in thousands, billions, trillions, and so on. And I found that there really are names for these really big numbers. And they go like this…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
thousand<\/td>\n4 to 6 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
million<\/td>\n7 to 9 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
billion<\/td>\n10 to 12 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
trillion<\/td>\n13 to 15 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quadrillion<\/td>\n16 to 18 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quintillion<\/td>\n19 to 21 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
sextillion<\/td>\n22 to 24 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
septillion<\/td>\n25 to 27 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
octillion<\/td>\n28 to 30 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
nonillion<\/td>\n31 to 33 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
decillion<\/td>\n34 to 36 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
undecillion<\/td>\n37 to 39 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
dodecillion<\/td>\n40 to 42 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
tredecillion<\/td>\n43 to 45 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quattuordecillion<\/td>\n46 to 48 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quindecillion<\/td>\n49 to 51 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
sexdecillion<\/td>\n52 to 54 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
septendecillion<\/td>\n55 to 57 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
octodecillion<\/td>\n58 to 60 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
novemdecillion<\/td>\n61 to 63 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
vigintillion<\/td>\n64 to 66 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
unvigintillion<\/td>\n67 to 69 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
dovigintillion<\/td>\n70 to 72 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
trevigintillion<\/td>\n73 to 75 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quattuorvigintillion<\/td>\n76 to 78 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quinvigintillion<\/td>\n79 to 81 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
sexvigintillion<\/td>\n82 to 84 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
septenvigintillion<\/td>\n85 to 87 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
octovigintillion<\/td>\n88 to 90 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
novemvigintillion<\/td>\n91 to 93 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
trigintillion<\/td>\n94 to 96 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
untrigintillion<\/td>\n97 to 99 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
dotrigintillion<\/td>\n100 to 102 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
tretrigintillion<\/td>\n103 to 105 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quattuortrigintillion<\/td>\n106 to 108 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
quintrigintillion<\/td>\n109 to 111 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
sextrigintillion<\/td>\n112 to 114 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
septentrigintillion<\/td>\n115 to 117 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
octotrigintillion<\/td>\n118 to 120 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
novemtrigintillion<\/td>\n121 to 123 digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

I’m sure there’s more somewhere, but that’s what I was able to find, and it’s plenty impressive. I’m not even sure how to pronounce some of those words.<\/p>\n

In the process of digging up this information, I ran across several really cool math-related websites. One of the best has to be the Kokogiak Megapenny Project<\/a>, which helps to visualize large numbers using, of course, pennies. For example, did you know that ten million pennies stacked up would make a cube 6 x 6 x 6 feet. If all those pennies were laid out flat, side-by-side, like a huge carpet of pennies, it would nearly cover one acre. If stacked in a single column it would reach 9.88 miles into the air. Oh, and it would weigh in at around 31.3 tons. That’s a lot of coin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everybody knows what to call big numbers when it comes to a dozen or so digits, but what about when the numbers get bigger than that? I was reading an article on Damn Interesting about the physical difficulties in folding a piece of paper, and tried to figure out how long a piece of paper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun","category-geek"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davintosh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}