On Molecular Numbers
I tried posting two text posts over the weekend, but neither came through then. I've fixed the problem, but they probably won't show up on your Friends Pages.
Also, I neglected to announce my 1000th post....
I was at a retreat this weekend. More on that later, but as I am behind, I'll post some short entries inspired by an astronomy talk given there....
I vaguely recall joking about this before, but maybe I have not. As a chemist, it seems silly that we use the adjective "astronomical" to refer to very large numbers. Frankly, the numbers that astronomers deal with are not that large relative to the numbers that chemists deal with.
For example, the universe is roughly 17 billion light years across. That's 17,000,000,000 light years (by the American definition of numbers), or 17 x 109 But a single mole of given molecules is 6.02 x 1023, or 602,214,150,000,000,000,000,000 molecules, or 602 sextillion molecules. To be more fair, let's use the number of stars in the universe; that is estimated at 70 sextillion or so. So the number of stars in the universe is probably orders of magnitude less than the number of molecules of water in the glass you had for lunch.
So it is clear that an "astronomical" amount is really quite a sissy number. I therefore propose that we begin referring to large numbers as "molecular" numbers, such as, "I post a molecular number of times in a year."
Also, I neglected to announce my 1000th post....
I was at a retreat this weekend. More on that later, but as I am behind, I'll post some short entries inspired by an astronomy talk given there....
I vaguely recall joking about this before, but maybe I have not. As a chemist, it seems silly that we use the adjective "astronomical" to refer to very large numbers. Frankly, the numbers that astronomers deal with are not that large relative to the numbers that chemists deal with.
For example, the universe is roughly 17 billion light years across. That's 17,000,000,000 light years (by the American definition of numbers), or 17 x 109 But a single mole of given molecules is 6.02 x 1023, or 602,214,150,000,000,000,000,000 molecules, or 602 sextillion molecules. To be more fair, let's use the number of stars in the universe; that is estimated at 70 sextillion or so. So the number of stars in the universe is probably orders of magnitude less than the number of molecules of water in the glass you had for lunch.
So it is clear that an "astronomical" amount is really quite a sissy number. I therefore propose that we begin referring to large numbers as "molecular" numbers, such as, "I post a molecular number of times in a year."