Talk:Orders of magnitude (numbers)

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I believe the entries for the Planck time, length and mass are out of place here, since the page is about dimensionless quantities. These belong on Orders of magnitude (time), Orders of magnitude (length) and Orders of magnitude (mass), respectively (some are already there). The ones concerning storage amounts probably shouldn't be here either (Orders of magnitude (data)), but I'm less concerned about those since they're related to counts of number of bits. - dcljr 10:15, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed Ian Cairns 10:56, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
removed --PhiJ 14:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Rowlett

I suggest deleting the Rowlett number information, since this system is only a proposed system. The long scale and short scale systems have centuries of historical usage, and are in widespread actual usage. If anyone can indicate when Rowlett will be accepted by which authority for which userbase, please look at Talk:Rowlett. Thanks, Ian Cairns 20:42, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Can anyone answer the question "What has to happen before the Rowlett system is ready to discontinue its description as "proposed"??" 66.245.108.17 15:12, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Another question to try: Anything that has been proposed for at least 20 years but still "proposed"?? 66.245.108.17 15:18, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Remove trivia?

I think a number of irrelevant items have made it onto this page. The purpose of the page must be to facilitate comparison of small and large numbers by their order of magnitude. I therefore think the following items (or at least the bold ones) should be removed (possibly moving the material to the relevant "nn (number)" article, or the like):

  • Most (but not all) of the probability entries ("Math - Poker", "Math - Lottery")
  • BioMed - HIV: About 1.2% of all 15-49 year-old humans were infected with HIV at the end of 2001
  • Math: φ ≈ 1.618034, the golden ratio
  • Sport: In Olympic basketball, the roster limit for a team is 12 (and they are limited to wearing numbers 4 through 15).
  • Sport: In NCAA basketball, players are not to wear digits above 5, and they are limited to one or two digits, making 42 distinct combinations (although 01, 02, 03, 04, and 05 typically aren't used). Since the roster limit is typically around 12, this doesn't present that much of a problem.
  • Lit: 42, The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
  • Sport: In North American professional sports, players typically wear uniform numbers from 1 to 99. In some sports, 0 and 00 are also allowed, making 101 different combinations.
  • Pol: There are 100 Senators in the United States Senate.
  • Lit: 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the ignition temperature of paper. Therefore, Ray Bradbury titled his dystopian novel about book burnings Fahrenheit 451 (not dimensionless)
  • Geo: 338,200 population of the London Borough of Croydon in 1998
  • Math: 2,147,483,647 is a Mersenne prime and a Zsigmondy number

--Niels Ø 21:12, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Agreed at least the Pol, Sport and Geo bits. There are just too many houses of parliment; far too many sports and absurdly far too many towns, cities, countries, boroughs, etc. to include them all. Why include some and not others? There can be no sensible reason ... except, where the number is interesting in itself, for example, the populations of China or India being the two greatest in the World. I have removed the following.
Jimp 04:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No rounding?

I notice in this list that the (for lack of a better word) "layman's" method for determining OOM — i.e., just counting the place of the most-significant digit — is used.

The mathematically correct method is to round up at the square root of 10, or approximately 3.16. The usual compromise is to just round up from 3 (this only introduces a few percent error). So, for instance, to pick an OOM as an example:

100
(1; one)

the last two would more appropriately go into the 101 section (and, if you use the up-from-3 compromise, π should as well). Is there a reason for doing this page in the count-the-digits style rather than using the true OOM? --TreyHarris 5 July 2005 21:37 (UTC)

[edit] Values needing power of ten equivalent

The following values should have a power of ten equivalent to allow comparison with other values on the page:

—Doug Bell talk•contrib 16:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huh??

The quote regarding human bacteria is quoted as both 1014 and 1015 can someone confirm which it is and edit accordingly??

Many thanks,

Aurelius —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.6.161.161 (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Huh?? The article says 10^12 bacteria on the body (surface), 10^14 cells in the body, 10^15 bacteria in the body. 3 different things are counted, so I see no need for editing. PrimeHunter 03:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
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