Start a timer that will count down the number of seconds from 52! to 0.
Then walk around the Earth’s equator with one step every billion years.
Then, after you make your way around the earth equator (by taking 1 step every billion of years), you take one drop of water out of the Pacific Ocean.
Then, you repeat the process of walking around the equator, and everytime you walk around, you keep draining one singular drop of water.
After the ocean is fully drained, you refill the ocean and put a piece of paper underneath you.
Now, you once again repeat this process of walking, draining, and placing papers.
After your stack of papers has reached the Sun, you repeat another 1000 times.
After all this, you have completed just about a third of the timer.
I once made a little tool for getting more intuitive spatial scales for things in the universe at <a href="https://observablehq.com/@ikesau/scale-to-the-universe" rel="nofollow">https://observablehq.com/@ikesau/scale-to-the-universe
I feel like you could do something similar for these sorts of "fathom this large number" recipes.
I think you might enjoy these stories - <a href="https://www.mrob.com/pub/math/largenum.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.mrob.com/pub/math/largenum.html
svobodamartin · · focus · HN ↗
Start a timer that will count down the number of seconds from 52! to 0. Then walk around the Earth’s equator with one step every billion years. Then, after you make your way around the earth equator (by taking 1 step every billion of years), you take one drop of water out of the Pacific Ocean. Then, you repeat the process of walking around the equator, and everytime you walk around, you keep draining one singular drop of water. After the ocean is fully drained, you refill the ocean and put a piece of paper underneath you. Now, you once again repeat this process of walking, draining, and placing papers. After your stack of papers has reached the Sun, you repeat another 1000 times.
After all this, you have completed just about a third of the timer.
<a href="https://sites.imsa.edu/hadron/2025/02/26/how-big-is-52/" rel="nofollow">https://sites.imsa.edu/hadron/2025/02/26/how-big-is-52/
davidnc · · focus · HN ↗
theturtletalks · · focus · HN ↗
ikesau · · focus · HN ↗
I once made a little tool for getting more intuitive spatial scales for things in the universe at <a href="https://observablehq.com/@ikesau/scale-to-the-universe" rel="nofollow">https://observablehq.com/@ikesau/scale-to-the-universe
I feel like you could do something similar for these sorts of "fathom this large number" recipes.
hermitcrab · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="http://howmanyelephants.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">http://howmanyelephants.co.uk/
avmich · · focus · HN ↗
svobodamartin · · focus · HN ↗