numbers, they makes me edgy

In the world of small children there are few numbers. I know of a lot of 2 year olds who think ten is a humongous number. Once they have begun to count
up to 10, they begin to think 10 is the end of the number world. I had a cousin whose son used the word ten interchangeably with vast, huge, great or enormous.
When he wanted to refer to something really really BIG he would say ‘It is BIG, 10 BIG’.And he would say that when he is TEN big he would become a policeman.
Of course according to him his father’s age was 10.

This is not just the case with children. Apparently in ancient Hebrew 40 was used to refer to ‘many’. For instance if they said that someone lived up to
40, it doesn’t refer to the exact number 40 but that he lived for many years. Apparently their religious book has a lot of references to the number 40
in the sense of ‘many’.
It is likely that the word for thousand was used in a similar manner in Hindu Myths. Otherwise how could we explain statements such as this :
After a thousand years of pleasure, in which he ruled virtuously, Yayati was sated with lust
At the end of a thousand years of penance to please Brahma, Rāvana cut off his own head and threw it as an oblation into the fire.
King Dasaratha had sixty thousand wives or Rama ruled for many thousand years.
(Sixty thousand wives? if we hazarded a guess about the population levels in his time this might mean that he was married to every woman in his kingdom.)

I am not a great fan of numbers and get nervous when they go beyond 3 digits. While I would be too happy to live in a world where the largest number is
2 or 10 or 40 or 1000, I can tolerate numbers up to say 100 million. This is something I can relate to. But beyond that? I think we should stick to ‘Many’.
For example
A googol is a a large number equal to a 1 with 100 zeros following it. Now of what use is a googol to me? dI cannot visualize it at all.
a googol represents nothing that is available in the universe.
There is really nothing left to count.
We have spanned the universe from its smallest parts to its entirety.

There is nothing that represents a googol in all of Universe!
The large number that can make some sense is
SEPTENVIGINTILLION which 10 to the power of 63 (10 followed by 63 zeros!) is the volume of the Universe in cubic inches.
But it is still useless for me – it is just ‘Many’.
The largest number that I can relate to , as I said before, is 100 million which I think is 10 crores. Someone once showed me the currency notes stacked
in the currency chest of bank and said that there was 10 crores of notes there. And I have seen a vast piece of land which was said to be valued at
10 crores. So I have a fair idea of what 10 crores looks like.
So if someone were to tell me that 10 raised to the power of 78 or QUINVINGTILLION represents the total number of atoms in the universe I would just hear
it as “MANY”. I would not even miss it if one atom lost its way and we had just quinvingtillion minus one atoms. I am rather careless with large numbers
that way. septenvingtillion, quinvingtillion - I am happy to put them all in one box labelled ‘MANY’.

I think there would be less dissatisfaction in the world if we didn’t worry too much about numbers. For instance a guy with 10 crore would not feel poorer
compared to another who has 20 or 50 crores. 10 crore is a huge sum in itself and imagine being unhappy with that! Going by my method they would all be
owners of MUCH money and hence equal.
The other day Shekar Suman ( of movers and shakers fame) made a valid point when he said that the difference between the fastest guy in the world and himself
is just 5 secs.The world’s fastest man can cover 100 m in 9.69 secs and Shekar can do it in about 14.5 secs. Even I can do it in about 30 seconds I think.
What is 21 seconds in our life – just a few winks! Why obsess over such small numbers! Is a person with 99.5% marks less intelligent than another who scored
99.6%. Sounds absurd but that is how we rate people these days.
I personally think there would be a lot more happiness if we did not get too anal about numbers. Imagine arithmetic problems . If the solution to a problem
is 13.46389, we should be able to give an answer of 13 or 14 or many and still get full marks. Imagine how happy that would make students like me!
Don't laugh or call me silly, I can give you examples of some great minds who share similar thoughts:

“Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms”

--akimbo barring

“I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing”

--Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

See! I know a lot of you there are numerically inclined and are even passionate about numbers. Dont get me wrong. I respect numbers too although i'd like to
admire them from a safe distance. Despite being numerically challenged, I have a fair idea of the importance of large numbers or small fractions in scientific
research and calculations, design and development, economics and astronomy and all sciences.
All I am saying is let us be a little relaxed about numbers in our day to day dealings and may be we could all be a little less dissatisfied with our lives
or even be happy.