[lbo-talk] Astronomical amounts vs. economical amounts

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Sep 26 20:50:45 PDT 2009


[I've heard this line before about how we ought to call them economical numbers. But either I've never heard the whole quote; or I didn't pay attention; or my perceptions have really changed after a year of throwing trillions around. 100 billion suddenly seems like really small number for the whole universe.]

<quote>

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. - Richard Feynman

<unquote>

h/t to Sam Smith's Undernews.

Michael



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