Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Extensions of the standard dictionary numbers. This section illustrates several systems for naming large numbers, and shows how they can be extended past vigintillion. Traditional British usage assigned new names for each power of one million (the long scale): 1,000,000 = 1 million; 1,000,0002 = 1 billion; 1,000,0003 = 1 trillion; and so on.
A standardized way of writing very large numbers allows them to be easily sorted in increasing order, and one can get a good idea of how much larger a number is than another one. To compare numbers in scientific notation, say 5×10 4 and 2×10 5, compare the exponents first, in this case 5 > 4, so 2×10 5 > 5×10 4.
For identical names, the long scale proceeds by powers of one million, whereas the short scale proceeds by powers of one thousand. For example, the short scale "one billion" (in many languages other than English called "one milliard", even on the short scale) means one thousand million (1,000,000,000), whereas in the long scale, "one billion ...
1/52! chance of a specific shuffle Mathematics: The chances of shuffling a standard 52-card deck in any specific order is around 1.24 × 10 −68 (or exactly 1 ⁄ 52!) [4] Computing: The number 1.4 × 10 −45 is approximately equal to the smallest positive non-zero value that can be represented by a single-precision IEEE floating-point value.
Power of 10. Visualisation of powers of 10 from one to 1 trillion. A power of 10 is any of the integer powers of the number ten; in other words, ten multiplied by itself a certain number of times (when the power is a positive integer). By definition, the number one is a power (the zeroth power) of ten. The first few non-negative powers of ten ...
A typical book can be printed with 10 6 zeros (around 400 pages with 50 lines per page and 50 zeros per line). Therefore, it requires 10 94 such books to print all the zeros of a googolplex (that is, printing a googol zeros).
The Ancient Greeks used a system based on the myriad, that is, ten thousand, and their largest named number was a myriad myriad, or one hundred million. In The Sand Reckoner, Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC) devised a system of naming large numbers reaching up to. essentially by naming powers of a myriad myriad. This largest number appears because ...
Indefinite and fictitious numbers. Many languages have words expressing indefinite and fictitious numbers —inexact terms of indefinite size, used for comic effect, for exaggeration, as placeholder names, or when precision is unnecessary or undesirable. One technical term for such words is "non-numerical vague quantifier". [1]