On 17 December 2013 19:01, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > I know. I was just taking 10^80 to mean "a very big number" which of > course depends on context. I generally do applied physics and engineering > and so 10^80+1 = 10^80 for physical variables. >
That reminds me of a joke... ...but you've probably heard it already, so I will stick to the point. 10^80 + 1 may happen to be a prime number (I leave the proof (or disproof) up to Stephen Paul King as an exercise in applied mathematical reasoning) in which case it is very different from 10^80 in terms of its mathematical properties, even though it is the same when used physically "for all intents and purposes" - since we already know that 10^80 is divisible by 10 (how did I work that, out without even being able to imagine 10^80 objects? It's like magic...! :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
