cartesian product … stuff about computing mostly

A question of dimensions

This tweet got me thinking…

Number of atoms in 24 g of carbon = 2^80. Number of atoms in the universe = 10^80. Base 2 vs base 10 makes a big difference.

— John D. Cook (@JohnDCook) March 3, 2013

It seems like an incredible comparison – after all $log_2(2^{80}) = 80$ and $log_{10}(10^{80}) = 80$ and $\frac{log_2(n)}{log_{10}(n) }\approx 3.3$

But the maths is correct – turns out the universe is about 56 orders of magnitude bigger than a slice of bread.

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Adrian McMenamin

size of the universe

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