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Bobertron comments on Raising numerate children - Less Wrong Discussion

33 Post author: Gunnar_Zarncke 30 August 2013 11:44PM

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Comment author: Bobertron 01 September 2013 09:58:30AM 1 point [-]

Now I'm venturing into off-topic territory, but:

Note that in German this is "Quadrillion" nicely verbalizing exponentiation via 'quad'='four' times multiplication of million.

I didn't know that. German is my own native language (and AFAIK many others work the same). I'm not very good with large numbers (I usually count them: "million, milliard, billion, billiard..."), so that helps.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 01 September 2013 10:49:55AM *  2 points [-]

It is easy. For example Avogadros number is roughly 10^-24 (for the purpose of estimating numbers of particles in natural phenomena) thus 24=4∙6 thus million^4 thus "Quadrillion" in German. And one googol is 10^100 and 100 = 16∙6+3+1 thus 10 "Sedezilliarden" (from 16=sedecem) albeit all this doesn't work in English at least not so easily.