CSNbbs

I'm sitting here bored at work, and I started to think of the largest number I know of: the "googleplex". What is this number? Well a "google" is 10 to the power of 100, that is a one with one hundred zeros that follow it. A 'googleplex" is 10 to the power of a google; a one with a google zeros behind it. That is alot of zeros! For a small comparison, here is a google written out:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
To write out a googleplex I would have to write out that many zeros. I've been told that to do this is a physical impossibillity so I decided to figure out how impossible it really was. After some quick excel work I found this out:

to write out a googleplex at a rate of 100 zeros per second would take 3,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years (3.17x10^90).
Our universe is less than 15 billion years old! It is estimated that protons will decay in 10^40 years. There is no way I would have the time to write out a googleplex.

But lets just say I did have the time to write it out, how long would it be? If I could write it out with 10 zeros every centimeter a googleplex would be 1,060,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 LIGHT YEARS long (1.06x10^81).
The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across. The "diameter" of the Universe has been estimated at 156 billion light years by astrophysicist Neil Cornish (Montanna State University). So if a written out googleplex suddenly appeared it would have to wind around itself to attempt to fit.

Writing out a googleplex would just be a waste of time.

That's interesting and all, but what's the largest practical number? ;-)

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:That's interesting and all, but what's the largest practical number? ;-)

1 in 10^123rd power. That's the odds of finding another Earth in the universe just like ours that is capable of sustaining life as we know it.

Oh yeah? Lets see that calculation.

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:Oh yeah? Lets see that calculation.

We've already had this discussion. I posted all the calculations in a thread from the book by Hugh Ross. I'll try to search function on this board, but I'm not going to go to the trouble again. You're like mlb. It doesn't matter if I post the info, you're probably not going to believe it anyway. I already posted it once.

I'm sure EZtoo will use the Drake Equation using the most up to date astronomical data.

Endzone2 Wrote:

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:Oh yeah? Lets see that calculation.

We've already had this discussion. I posted all the calculations in a thread from the book by Hugh Ross. I'll try to search function on this board, but I'm not going to go to the trouble again. You're like mlb. It doesn't matter if I post the info, you're probably not going to believe it anyway. I already posted it once.

It shouldn't be that hard to show the calculation and explain how you arrived to it.

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:

Endzone2 Wrote:

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:Oh yeah? Lets see that calculation.

We've already had this discussion. I posted all the calculations in a thread from the book by Hugh Ross. I'll try to search function on this board, but I'm not going to go to the trouble again. You're like mlb. It doesn't matter if I post the info, you're probably not going to believe it anyway. I already posted it once.

It shouldn't be that hard to show the calculation and explain how you arrived to it.

Hugh Ross did the math. There are so many variables taken into consideration. I've put the book back into my storage space, and don't have it at the moment.

Basically he listed about 50 variables that were of a scientific nature such as:

Finding another star the same temperature as ours 1 in 10,000
Finding a galaxy with the same direction of rotation as ours 1 in 100,000

There is a long list of about 50 to 70 constants that must be identical to the ones we have or else life would die out on Earth. The final tabulation was something like 1 in 10^165th power that there would be another planet just like Earth in the universe. Then he estimated the number of possible planets in the universe to be something like 10^42rd power. Then he divided the number of planets into 10^165th power and the result was that there was a 1 in 10^123rd power that there was another planet like Earth in the solar system. The conclusion of course if that we are a very unique place in the universe.

I'm going to have to agree with EZtoo on this. Even with the billions of stars and planets in our galaxy the chances of finding a planet that formed and evolved exactly as our backwater little Earth had are very, very remote.

Ah, I figured it was the drake equation. Might I say that that equation can be written to either totally make life seemingly impossible or very likely?

The fact is that any number that comes out of it is nothing more than the probability of tons of guesses. Obviously there are more logical guesses than others, but those guesses are still just guesses.

Also if he went through the entire Drake equation that's for intelligent life surviving right now, not life in general. Of course you might have understood that when you said "life as we know it."

Quote:the chances of finding a planet that formed and evolved exactly as our backwater little Earth had are very, very remote.

I wouldn't expect to see anything exactly like our planet. I don't think we have found two planets or moons or anything that are very similar in all of our searching.

Endzone2 Wrote:

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:That's interesting and all, but what's the largest practical number? ;-)

1 in 10^123rd power. That's the odds of finding another Earth in the universe just like ours that is capable of sustaining life as we know it.

That's not the "largest practical number." That's not even a big number, that's an extremely small number... Odds are a fraction.

1 in 10^123 is 1:10^123 or 1/10^123 or... 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

;-)

I thought about that too, SouthGA. +1

Endzone2 Wrote:We've already had this discussion. I posted all the calculations in a thread from the book by Hugh Ross. I'll try to search function on this board, but I'm not going to go to the trouble again. You're like mlb. It doesn't matter if I post the info, you're probably not going to believe it anyway. I already posted it once.

Sweet, I'm on EZ2's hate list.

Is it wrong to ask someone prove their "factual" statements? Explain where they heard statistics they are quoting? I don't think so. If you ever went in to a real debate you would be expected to list your sources for statistics, all I do is ask for them myself.

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:+1

= 1.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

lmfao

SouthGAEagle Wrote:

Bourgeois_Rage Wrote:+1

= 1.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

lmfao

Nice. I'll play it safe this time. *1

Not quite as interesting but conciderably more important is the fact that there is no number known as a googleplex.

However there is a number called "googolplex" that seems similiar...

So I guess I would say that writing out googleplex really is a waste of time.

kevinharbin Wrote:Not quite as interesting but conciderably more important is the fact that there is no number known as a googleplex.

However there is a number called "googolplex" that seems similiar...

So I guess I would say that writing out googleplex really is a waste of time.

lmfao lmfao lmfao lmfao lmfao

The whole time you guys were writing about a Google Complex...

Yeah, now I feel no better than people who use 'their' when they mean 'they're.' Doh!