We then moved on to the largest numbers participants knew. We wrote them down, counted the zeroes, and named the numbers. Exponential notation was introduced here - the exponent on the ten is just the number of zeroes! There were signs up around the room, one for each family of big numbers (millions, quadrillions, etc). On the signs were a number, how many zeroes it has, the number written in exponential notation, and the number family it belongs to. The bottom of the sign then gave at least four (4) "things" which were that large. Examples:
1
no zeroes
units
10**0 (this is the exponential notation)
1 moon and 1 sun above us
5 fingers on most human hands
You are probably wearing one pair of underwear!
$3 or $4 is the cost of a box of cereal
100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000
Quintillion [Europe=trillion]
18 zeros
10**18
Almost a quintillion cells in the human body
5 x 10**18 kilograms is the mass of Earth’s atmosphere
We are 240 quintillion meters away from the center of the Milky Way
10 key strokes on a standard keyboard yields 6 x 10**19 permutations
Then we tried to count as high as we could. We took a sheet of paper prepared with little squares on it and colored in one square for each ten "things" the child had done. It they scratched their nose, ten times, that was one square colored in or outlined (hands got tired!). If a child jumped 10 times, another square. Their papers went home with them to continue filling in. How high can they go?
The video clip Powers of Ten was available for viewing, but the young ones who joined us for this program were more interested in moving their bodies outside than sitting, so another time ...
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