The Big Numbers of Our Lives
Lately, we are bombarded by the media with staggering numbers—unicorn companies making fortunes, the net worth of the super-rich, and the immense GDPs of powerful nations. Millions, billions, and trillions have become everyday conversational topics, thrust into our faces by the winds of social media. But these numbers, though they may sound similar, are vastly different in magnitude.
To put this into perspective, let’s consider an example:
If we had an airplane flying for a million seconds, it would be airborne for about 11 days.
If it were flying for a billion seconds, that journey would stretch to 31 years!
But if the plane flew for a trillion seconds, it would soar continuously for an astonishing 31,710 years!
(Of course, on Miller’s Planet from Interstellar, this would amount to just four days, but you get the idea!)
The Magnitude of Big Numbers
Here’s an anthology of fascinating numbers to add perspective to these mind-boggling figures:
How many humans have ever lived on Earth?
An estimated 117 billion people have walked this planet, with 8 billion alive today. It took millennia to reach the first billion in 1084 AD, then just 123 years for the second, 33 years for the third, and a mere 14 years to hit the fourth in 1972.
What about animals?
Animals appeared around 600 million years ago. Today, there are approximately 8.7 million known species, though 99% of all species that ever existed are now extinct—amounting to billions. Scientists estimate that there have been septillions (10^24) of individual animals on Earth.
Trees and forests:
Trees have existed for 370 million years, and there are about 3 trillion trees on Earth today. Unfortunately, this number decreases by 15 billion annually due to fires and deforestation. Over Earth’s history, the number of trees is believed to have ranged in the hundreds of trillions to quadrillions.
Everyday Numbers in Perspective
Songs:
Around 100 million songs exist in today’s music databases. When including oral traditions, cultural music, and pre-recording eras, the total number reaches approximately 1 billion songs.
Movies:
About 1 million movies are recorded in databases like IMDb. If we include shorts, documentaries, experimental works, and indie projects, the total number grows to several million. A film enthusiast can realistically watch around 16,000 movies in a lifetime (4 movies per week for 80 years). So, choose wisely—don’t waste your time on mediocre films!
Meals:
Over a lifetime, assuming occasional skipped breakfasts, a person will eat approximately 75,000 meals.
The Ultimate Big Number: Card Shuffles
How many ways can a deck of 52 cards be shuffled?
The answer is a staggering 52 factorial (52!), which equals 8×10^67—a number with 67 zeros!
This means that if every human who ever lived shuffled cards across every planet we know of, for hundreds of lifetimes, the same shuffle would never occur twice.
All the cowboys in the Far West, all the soldiers in the World wars, all the Las Vegas aficionados, all the elites and all the simple people playing cards through history, never saw the same, identical shuffle.
Since the dawn of time, no two shuffled decks have ever been identical, nor will they ever be.
Have a great ( 0+1^3 +2^3 +3^3+4^3+5^3+6^3+7^3+8^3+9^3) = 2025 !