The philosophical implications of exponential growth

Celticguy said:
no they find that the 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper is too small to be able to continue to fold in half.
but his example did not address the square inches in the paper.

first fold = 2 thicknesses
second fold = 4 thicknesses


keep going and its 71m miles and as a light year is nearly 6 trillion miles, not even close.
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Nope


If it was thinner you could keep folding that tiny square more


But you can’t because it’s too thick to fold
 
Our minds just reach to even try to grasp exponential growth.

I heard from the biologist Stephen Nowicki, that E. coli bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes, and if you assumed no death or mortality and no limit on food and metabolism, the Earth's surface would be knee deep in bacteria in a month, and the entire observable universe would be filled with bacteria within a few decades
 
Cypress said:
I wrote IF you could fold a sheet 50 times, which is physically impossible, but nonetheless instructive as a mathmatical abstraction.

I learned this factoid from mathematics professor Edward Burgar, so the math is rock solid, and I confirmed it myself with calculator.
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Excel disagrees
 
My calculator says 112589990684262 mm, which if you converted the units to kilometers, should be 112 million km

.I have heard several math professors state this factoid, and I trust them even without having to go to a calculator
 
Since the folds double the cumulative amount of folds each time, have Excel tell you what 2 raised ^ to the 50th exponent is. I guarantee you it is a massively huge, ginormous number.

This thread was a real-time demonstration of how the human mind cannot grasp exponential growth.
 
Cypress said:
Since the folds double the cumulative amount of folds each time, have Excel tell you what 2 raised ^ to the 50th exponent is. I guarantee you it is a massively huge, ginormous number.

This thread was a real-time demonstration of how the human mind cannot grasp exponential growth.
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2 squared= 4
2 cubed = 8
2 ^ exponent 8 = 256
2^ exponent 20 = 1,048,576
2^ exponent 30 = 1,073,741,824
2^ exponent 50 = 112,589,990,684,262
 
Sock Sockinski said:
Sounds like bullshit!
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1 millimeter times two to the exponent 109 is a massive, ginormous, unfathomable number, no matter how you slice it.

Its 6.4 x 10 exponent 32 millimeters,
Or off the top of my head, that's 6.4 times 10 exponent 26 kilometers.

^^ That is an intergalactic scale at least.
 
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Cypress said:
1 millimeter times two to the exponent 109 is a massive, ginormous, unfathomable number, no matter how you slice it.

Its 6.4 x 10 exponent 32 millimeters,
Or off the top of my head, that's 6.4 times 10 exponent 26 kilometers.

^^ That is an intergalactic scale at least.
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That and a dime will get you a gumball
 
Sock Sockinski said:
Show me! By doing it.
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I just gave you the equation, which is verifiable by the calculator on your computer.

Besides, last time you hounded me to answer a question, you disappeared and ghosted me after I gave you a complete and fully documented answer to your question. Even after I asked you to acknowledge I had fully answered your question.
 
Cypress said:
I just gave you the equation, which is verifiable by the calculator on your computer.

Besides, last time you hounded me to answer a question, you disappeared and ghosted me after I gave you a complete and fully documented answer to your question. Even after I asked you to acknowledge I had fully answered your question.
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What computer?
 
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