The scale of the universe

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Archimedes who is considered the third greatest mathematician of all time after Gauss and Newton came up with the number 1 followed by 80 thousand billion zeros. Not bad for an age when a number larger than 3 was considered enormous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Reckoner

Regards

Steven

Archimedes was into screw spirals, wasn't he ??

[renormalised (Carl)]

And taking long baths, then streaking through the neighbourhood

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Archimedes was into screw spirals, wasn't he ??

Yep. He was the same fellow that helped destroy the invading Roman fleet by designing crude parabolic mirrors that set fire to the Roman ships. He also invented a mechanical claw that grabbed the Roman ships and smashed them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_o...E2%80%93212_BC)

It shows that mathematicians can be very practical people.

Steven

[renormalised (Carl)]

Tell that to the Romans

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Yep. He was the same fellow that helped destroy the invading Roman fleet by designing crude parabolic mirrors that set fire to the Roman ships. He also invented a mechanical claw that grabbed the Roman ships and smashed them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_o...E2%80%93212_BC)

It shows that mathematicians can be very practical people.

Steven

I knew there'd be a plug for mathematicians in there somewhere !!

[Baddad (Marty)]

Hi Gentlemen and ladies,
They don't have an emoticon for FOCL (Fall Off Chair Laughing)

Originally the name of the number was googol.

It was said as an exclamation by a boy. His father, mathematician, drew a '1' and 100 zeros after it on a black board with chalk. The son, "A Googol!" and so it came to be.

[CraigS]

I think we're clean on that one. (Aren't we ?)
A googolplex seems to be bigger than a googol, anyway.

... And Archimedes was a cool dude !!

Cheers