It's amazing to consider the number of stars in the sky and the number of grains of sand on a beach. And for anyone who has considered such things, the natural train of thought is to wonder of which there are more.
Luckily there are mathematicians wondering these same things who have the potential and motivation to actually model the situations and find answers. A group of researchers at the University of Hawaii put their minds to the task of counting how many grains of sand there are via a method of assuming the size of an average grain and then extrapolating outward multiple times. The answer they came to is that there are roughly (get it?) 7.5 x 10¹â¸ grains of sand, or seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion grains.
But then what about stars? The problem when you consider stars, is that the several thousands we can see by looking up (if you're in a dark place, at least) is not even a fraction of the number of stars in the universe. An estimate from 2003 pegs stars 70 thousand million million million, and that's just in the known and observable universe! that's already multiple stars per grain of sand on earth!!
But for as unimaginable as the number of stars is, there is actually something that can be found in your home that can rival it. That unimaginable number of stars? All that is equal to the number of water molecules in just 10 drops of water. So when it comes to contemplating ridiculously large numbers of things, it turns out that big and grand pales in comparison to small, compact and efficient.
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