1.8446744e+19
eighteen quintillion, four hundred and forty-six quadrillion, seven hundred and forty-four trillion
=2^64
2 to the 64th power, 264 is also written with a caret, 2^64. Who cares? Many people. The story goes that the inventor of chess had so pleased the ruler that he was offered anything he desired. The inventor said he wanted a grain of rice for the first of the 64 squares on the board, double that for the 2nd square, double again for the third square and keep doubling for all 64 squares. It came to 18 quintillion etc, the number at the top of this post. I read that the ruler was said to have been outraged and had the inventor put to death.
One of my favorite formulas is 2 to the Nth, where N is the number of elements in a set or group. 2^N gives the total number of selections that can be made for the set of N. If you have A,B and C, you could have any of the three (3), AB, BC and AC (3), ABC and none (2). 2x2x2 = 8.
Grace Huckins, a doctoral student in neuroscience networks, wrote this article for Wired magazine:
Whether it is brain cells in a brain or members of a discussion group, humans have a great amount of thinking power. Each human brain has around 100 billion cells that can be connected to each other in various combinations. Please don't go to the trouble of trying to multiply 100 billion 2's together.
