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Making Sense of Big Numbers


To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake, from
"Auguries of Innocence"

1015Grains of sand on a beach
1015Ants in the world
1017Seconds since big bang
1021Diameter of the galaxy (m)
1022Stars in the universe
1026Diameter of the Universe (m)
1047Seconds till all protons decay*
1050Atoms in the earth
1066Atoms in the galaxy
1078Atoms in the observable universe

“Making Sense of Big Numbers”

  1. Anonymous Anonymous Says:

    Do protons decay ? It's only a speculation from one those GUTs. Isn't ?

  2. Anonymous Anonymous Says:

    Indeed it is just a GUT. That's why I had the star next to it, but I wrote this in MS Word, it did not translate well over on blogger.