Big Numbers

Music is Quiet by Sheila Chandra

It is possible to be completely unaware of the ground at this height. I know I am not miles up the air in some skyscraper but the sound of the ground does not reach here, even the roar of city traffic seems to travel only at ground level.

The largest Prime number has just been discovered, which reminds me that my daughter (5YOD © Ed Broom) was insisting that she knew that Googleplex was the last number. I kept trying the old add 1 to it to get a higher number and indeed she did join in with Googleplex plus 2 etc. This discussion came about because of a question on The Weakest Link (No emails please) over what was the last consonant. 5YOD knew this easily but could not really explain what a vowel and a consonant actually were. Can you explain it in fewer words than Merriam-Webster? The clue is constriction and the solution is obvious when you read it. I love numbers.

Is understanding infinity like understanding four spatial dimensions? (Goodbye to my Wife who has just switched off). I know what infinity is but I cannot visualise it just like I can calculate with four spatial dimensions and indeed find one dimensional distances between points in any-dimensional space but not see how that space exists in any real sense. It does not mean that the space is not there, just that humans do not have experience or sensory apparatus to cope with it. Even space, which as Douglas Adams is famous for saying, is really big, is not infinite, not even close to being infinite. Maybe I am wrong on that and scientists have said at various peaks on the Sine waves of believe in such things, that space is indeed infiniate and full of an infinite amount of matter. Adams got that bit wrong, any proportion of infinity is infinity and therefore the population of the Universe is one rather than nothing. That one is me - and er - you obviously which just goes to show you the beauty and strangeness of space etc.

I suppose I should start being serious again now. It must be all this Zen like calm that has washed over me since listening to the Sheila Chandra. This is a long way from Grange Hill. Even the name - Chandra - seems mantra-like, conjuring up images of telescopes and other astronomical things. So many people ask why mankind looks outside its own realms for information about objects and events which can have no bearing on this planet. The answer is obvious even to most people who ask the question. The very scientific advances which, if directed correctly, will save mankind and individuals from miry death in pits of bacteria, are created through mankind's desire to understand the world. You may know my view that we will never understand everything because distance will retreat from us and microscopic things will break down to reveal further levels of complexity but this should not be a brake on us attempting to do so. Conversely, does the fact that our ancestors had a definite belief in how the world worked which maybe involved some form of supernatural actions and affects, stop the world having been real for them? Think about it - but not too hard.