What is the largest number that you can imagine?

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

01 April 2007

A few readers have disputed the claim in last week’s article that it is impossible for a human being to count to one billion. My reply is simple: the proof of the pudding is in the eating – don’t just disagree – start counting now and see how far you will go!

Nevertheless, one question was left unanswered: if it is impossible to count to one billion, then what is the largest number that a human being can count to in a lifetime? To find out, we must start with some basic assumptions.

First, we assume that the average person will live to the age of 70 years (in Kenya, the value is around 55!). Secondly, the concept of very large numbers properly understood at about 7 to 10 years of age – my four year-old son can only count to one hundred but from what I have observed, he can’t truly conceptualise numbers greater that about 30. To him, 100 is just as large as 30!

Thus it turns out that anyone attempting to set the counting record would have only about 60 years for the task. Now, while it can take about 60 second to count to 100 very fast, continuing to 1,000 may take up to 30 minutes. Then from 1,000 to 10,000 could last about five hours.

Clearly, by the end of the first eight hours, the counter will be nowhere near a million. Following this progression, it turns out that by the time he dies at 70 years of age, the counter would have gone up to only a few millions! And considering the amount of boredom counting can generate, the poor guy might probably die before he is 20 years old!

All the same, some one suggested that the counting can be hastened if one counted in tens and used the fingers to group the number of tens. Thus you can count to ten and fold one finger of your right hand, the repeat from one to ten again and fold another finger (to make twenty). The five fingers only get you to 50 and after that, you start unfolding them…that gets you to 100.

At 100, you now fold a finger of your left hand; start again from one to 100 and fold another left hand finger to signify 200. Continue like this and you can count to 1,000 very fast – perhaps I less than 5 minutes. However, after that things can get tricky…

But a more interesting question might be this: What is the largest number you can imagine? Think about it and then tell me what it is – either directly by the email below or through the editor of this newspaper. Let’s see who has the wildest imagination.