Is beyond our conception. We can no more realise its immensity, than
we can the tenth part of a second. It should be a pleasing fact
to note that commercial calculations do not often extend beyond
millions; generally speaking, it is in the realm of speculative
calculation only, such as probability, astronomy, &c., that we are
brought face to face with these unthinkable magnitudes.
Who, for instance, could form the slightest idea that the odds
against a person tossing a coin in the air so as to bring a head
200 times in succession are
160693804425899027554196209234116260522202993782792835301375
(over I decillion, &c.) to 1 against him? Suppose that all the men,
women and children on the face of the earth were to keep on tossing
coins at the rate of a million a second for a million years, the
odds would still be too great for us to realise against any one
person succeeding in performing the above feat, and yet the number
representing the odds would be only half as long as the one already
given.
Or, who could understand the other equally astounding fact that
Sirius, the Dog-star, is 130435000000000 miles from the earth, or
even that the earth itself is 5426000000000000000000 tons in weight.