So it's back in hunter-gatherer times for our species; around the campfire one night, there's a couple of cave people geeking out and talking about numbers.
Thor: "I can think of a number bigger than you can."
Lana: "Oh yeah? Try me."
Thor: "Two."
Lana: "Three."
Thor: "Oh man. Got me."
So how big is big? We can talk in class about a billion seconds as being a lot of seconds -- nearly 32 years worth -- and say WOW that's awesome...what big numbers..... but what about the number of seconds that's in a billion years? That number makes our billion seconds seem pretty trivial. Just as we may chuckle at Lana and Thor, there may be a group of people several thousand years hence (assuming we don't kill ourselves before then) that laughs at our inability to contemplate what they consider to be large numbers. This is almost like my 1986 computer I told you about where 40 megs was SO MUCH SPACE that people thought, "What is she ever going to do with that space?"
So how big is big? Exponential functions (with a base greater than one) are rapidly increasing functions and just beg the question: how big is that big number? Choose your method of describing large numbers; give some kind of numerical idea of how we might contemplate large ideas. Other than Jenny Lee's or Tony Borek's idea of how much time is equal to 1 billion seconds, what are other ways that might allow us to wrap our minds around large numbers? That's your task. Yep, pretty open-ended and this asks you to think a little creatively and outside the box. Google whatever you'd like, but be original and write your own stuff.
Let me give you some starter examples of what you can think about: How many blades of grass are there on AA property? How about how many gallons of water are in Lake Superior? How many pennies would you stack together to reach the moon?
Have fun. If you have questions, let me know.
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