Just how big is it?

[Snowhog]

2^100 (Two to the 100th Power)

Read the question and then go and read the 'answer' from start to finish, without jumping to the end. I was astonished! Me thinks you will be to!!

[HalationEffect]

Reminds me of the fable of the chess board and the grains of rice: http://www.singularitysymposium.com/...al-growth.html

[lcorken]

Reminds me of the last piece of pie or cake. No one wants to take the last peace so you cut it in half and take half. The next person cuts the remainder in half and so on until the last crumb is cut in half. Well, you folks may not have this hang up but...

I like pie. I don't mean the 3.1459...
Ken

[Snowhog]

Yup.

And, if you could save a penny on day 1, and double that amount each day for just one full month (31 days), you'd have $21,474,836.48!!

[Snowhog]

Reminds me of the last piece of pie or cake. No one wants to take the last peace so you cut it in half and take half. The next person cuts the remainder in half and so on until the last crumb is cut in half. Well, you folks may not have this hang up but...

I like pie. I don't mean the 3.1459...
Ken

And theoretically, if you stand at x distance from a wall, and walk only half the distance towards it, stopping, then again walking half the distance, theoretically, you'll never reach the wall!

[jlittle]

I was astonished! Me thinks you will be to!!

Not if you're a computer programmer, familiar with the approximation 2^10 ≈ 10^3, so 2^100 ≈ 10^30. You're given 500 sheets = 50 mm, so 1000 = 100 mm, so 10^4 = 1 m, thus the pile is 10^26 m. A lot. A light year ≈ 10^16 m, our galaxy 100,000 ly, so my answer was about 10^5 times the size of the Milky Way (5 being 26 - 16 - 5).

Regards, John Little

[jlittle]

And theoretically, if you stand at x distance from a wall, and walk only half the distance towards it, stopping, then again walking half the distance, theoretically, you'll never reach the wall!

That depends how long you stop for each time. If the time you pause tends towards zero as fast as the distance you walk, your extrapolation to "never" is invalid. Also, the uncertainty principle will apply pretty soon, too.

Regards, John the party pooper Little

[Snowhog]

hehe. I did say "theoretically", but maybe I should have said "philosophically".

Zeno's paradoxes

[SteveRiley]

Reminds me of the last piece of pie or cake. No one wants to take the last peace so you cut it in half and take half.

Not me. I see that last piece and I scarf that sucker up.

[oshunluvr]

and Steve does that while announcing "hey, did anywad wunt dis las piece of pie?" through the first fork full.

You were probably that kid who licked the candy he received at Christmas.

[SteveRiley]

You were probably that kid who licked the candy he received at Christmas.

And everybody else's when they weren't looking.

[kubicle]

Not if you're a computer programmer, familiar with the approximation 2^10 ≈ 10^3, so 2^100 ≈ 10^30. You're given 500 sheets = 50 mm, so 1000 = 100 mm, so 10^4 = 1 m, thus the pile is 10^26 m. A lot. A light year ≈ 10^16 m, our galaxy 100,000 ly, so my answer was about 10^5 times the size of the Milky Way (5 being 26 - 16 - 5).

Regards, John Little

So you went for the easier way. I OTOH, will need one-hell-of-a paper cutter after just a few more cuts. Chuck Norris has already cut 200 times (with his bare hands of death).

[woodsmoke]

Or like Chum, you can give out Secret Santa names and only have yours in the bag.

woodsmoke

[Detonate]

Reminds me of the old trick math question.

I car goes around a circular one mile track, on the first lap the driver averages 30 MPH. How fast will he have to drive the second lap to average 60 mph for both laps?

[HalationEffect]

Reminds me of the old trick math question.

I car goes around a circular one mile track, on the first lap the driver averages 30 MPH. How fast will he have to drive the second lap to average 60 mph for both laps?

Somewhat counter-intuitively, he'd have to go infinitely fast on that 2nd lap in order to average 60MPH over the two laps. Or, to put it another way, he'd have to complete the 2nd lap in zero time.

My favourite example of counter-intuitive mathematics is the Monty Hall problem.