logoalt Hacker News

ur-whaletoday at 7:39 AM2 repliesview on HN

> For some context, a billion years at a 20 minute breeding cycle is 26.3 trillion generations.

Which if you want an actual feel for the true scale of things, must be multiplied by (order of magnitude) the number of bacteriums on the planet.


Replies

f6vtoday at 8:12 AM

> Which if you want an actual feel for the true scale of things

The caveat is that more zeros do nothing for our comprehension of the scale. That's the problem because most people can't comprehend how evolution is even possible. We just don't have a mental model for a trillion, it's all the same to us after a certain threshold.

zimpenfishtoday at 7:58 AM

Good point, forgot about that. Add another 10-20 zeros?