Playing With Big Numbers

The human mind

is essentially qualitative.

As you know,

we are easily excited by

pinks and purples,

triangles and circles

and we endlessly argue

over true and false,

right and wrong.

But quantitative analyses

rarely touch our souls.

Numbers were invented mainly

by men to trick each other.

I am almost certain women had

nothing to do with them. They

had more vital tasks, survival for example,

at hand.

But playing with big numbers

could be interesting.

In fact it could be really fun. Say

if I were to sit on a gravel pit and

count one billion pebbles non-stop

it will take me some 14 years;

or if I were to count what Africa

owes to rich

foreigners – some 200 billion

dollars,

it is impossible. I will have to

be born 40 times and do nothing

but keep counting 24 hours.

Although things could be simpler on a

smaller scale. Suppose as a result

of the debt, five million children die

every year , as in fact they do,

and each dying child cries

a minimum of 100 times a day

there would be a trillion cries

floating around

in the atmosphere just over a

period of five years.

Remember a sound wave once

generated never ceases to exist

in one form or the other,

and never escapes the atmosphere.

Now one fine morning, even if

one of these cries suddenly hits

you, it will shatter your soul into

a billion pieces. It will take

14 years to gather

the pieces and put them back

into one piece.

On the other hand, may be all the

trillion cries could hit your soul

and nothing would happen.

Ajmer Rode