this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Astronomy
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For large estimates, it would be suspicious if it wasn't round.
The number is 40,000,000,000,000,000,000. That can mean two different things.
To illustrate with an example of that article:
Let's assume they measured these 40 quintillion with a "ruler" which has a resolution of 1 quintillion. In that case, they could just as well say the number is 40.1539577 quintillion, or dream up any other combination of digits after the leading '40' (like, for example "000,000,000..."). Because they don't know.
But if they noted a non-zero string of digits, readers would wrongly assume their ruler has sufficient precision to measure these smaller digits.
So this notation conveys two insights:
So a non-round number would be suspicious, because it pretends to have precision which it most certainly cannot have.