Star survey reaches 70 sextillion

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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Insert - Official beginning of numbers that have no meaning to human minds

Actually, numbers greater than 4 have no meaning to the human mind. Every number beyond that is thought of as sets of 4s (including partial 4s). Of course, this is at the most basic level of thinking, and we are obviously quite capable of fooling ourselves into thinking we can comprehend big numbers.

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Huh

I mean to say, ... huh?

Wait, I'm fascinated now. Where does 4 come as the basic unit of human math capacity.

I saw on t.v. that tacky movie Darryl Hannah and the clan of the cave bear, and she could count higher than the head geek neandertal, but seriously who came up with the 4 thing?

[Kamog]

Only 4? Surely humans can comprehend numbers bigger than 4 ??

If we're talking about numbers we can visualize in our minds, I think it's bigger than 4 but probably less than 100. I can visualize geometric shapes like triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon, so I know I can visualize at least up to 8. I can visualize the image of two hands, with 10 fingers, so I know I can visualize 10. Or a dozen eggs for 12.

Then in my mind I can picture a group of, say 5 octagons arranged in a pentagon pattern, which make 40 sides, and so on. But it does get more difficult when the number gets much bigger than that.

[Fyron]

I did not mean pictures, I meant the numerical concept of 4 itself.

[Baron Munchausen]

Short-term memory deals with 4-5 objects at a time. This has been verified by extensive psychological testing. Think of trying to remember phone numbers, addresses, etc. You can't handle more than 4 or 5 in short-term memory without losing track of something. That's why phone numbers were organized as they were, btw, in little Groups. It makes many numbers into larger 'chunks' data. Committing information to long-term memory is a different matter, of course, but that takes time.

This is a completely different thing from comprehension of numbers in the abstract. It's certainly true that larger numbers get more and more difficult to truly understand. But the cut-off is not quite as abrupt, or as small, as the number 4.

[ July 26, 2003, 23:24: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Short-term memory deals with 4-5 objects at a time. This has been verified by extensive psychological testing.

Wow. O.K. That does explain a lot. I gotta read up on this. Sometimes I have real crappy memory, can't remember what I was just talking about. Do some people have worse short term memory than others? Just how do different people differ in how their memory works?

[Narf'scompatshop]

i was going to post something, but i forgot what about.

[Fyron]

Hrm... I guess the specifics did not make it past short term memory in this case.

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Arkcon:
Insert - Official beginning of numbers that have no meaning to human minds

10^100: Google.

[Narf'scompatshop]

i'm pretty sure it's a googal.

[Fyron]

Isn't it a googalplex?