Thursday, March 15, 2007
Useless Information
As taken from "Sizesaurus" by Stephen Strauss (1995): It would take 27,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Big Macs to equal the weight of the earth. From the same source, it would take 140,000,000,000 Big Mac patties to cover one square mile. The problem with the first number is that I don't know how to say it, so there is no chance of dropping it into polite conversation. My problem with the second stat is the trick it plays on my mind, trying to imagine all those round patties covering a square mile. I guess this is just another good reason to celebrate pi day every day.
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2 comments:
Twenty-seven septillion, eight hundred sextillion. But if you say it that way, you'll sound like someone who looked up how to say that number. To sound like you deal with things like that all the time, use scientific notation: "Two point seven eight times ten to the twenty-fifth" which would be written out: 2.78 x 10^25.
As for the second stat, why not imagine the square mile with millions of little pieces cut out of it and recombined to make circles elsewhere?
Thank you, Clark! Not just one way to say that crazy number - but two! Imagine how clever I would sound if I said them both in quick succession: "Twenty-seven septillion, eight hundred sextillion, or in other words, two point seven eight times ten to the twenty-fifth." Chances are good I will never use it, but now if I want to I can. Yay!
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