The difficulty of understanding zeros

In the decimal system each time a zero is added to the right of an integer number, the figures increase by an order of magnitude (that is, they are multiplied by ten)

The human mind is familiar with figures that are written with two or three leading zeros (hundreds or thousands). It is also possible to imagine figures with four, five and even six zeros. For example tens, hundreds of thousands or millions.

It becomes more complicated as we continue to add zeros, for example ten, eleven, fifteen or twenty zeros. In the latter case we would be talking about hundreds of trillions.

Well, in nature many phenomena are explained with figures of fifteen or twenty zeros.

For example, humans have about 20 to 50 billion (20,000,000,000,000 to 50,000,000,000,000) of cells according to various estimates. In each cell there is a DNA macromolecule that contains about 3,500 million (3,500,000,000) base pairs where the genetic information of each individual is contained. This applies to all species of multicellular organisms although in each of them the amount of cells, base pairs and zeros varies so much. That is, a human organism has at least 70 thousand trillion base pairs (7 followed by 22 zeros; 7 x 1022).

We can also stop to observe annual daily productions or hydrocarbon reserves. For example, the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia produces 5 million barrels per day, that is, two billion (2,000,000,000) barrels per year and contains about 50 to 80,000 million barrels. Measured in liters are 2 billion liters (2,000,000,000,000).

If we refer to the ages of the rocks we also find numbers of many zeros. The geological formations of the shields (Brazilian, Canadian, etc.) have ages that can reach 2,000 million or 3,000 million (2,000,000,000 or 3,000,000,000) years. The age of the Earth would extend to us 5,000 million (5,000,000 years)

When we refer to astronomical phenomena the amount of zeros increases considerably.

Measured in kilometers the distance that separates our solar system from the nearest stars is about 40 billion (40,000,000,000,000).

The distance to the center of the Milky Way (our galaxy) is 1 trillion kilometers (1,000,000,000,000,000,000).

The distance to the Andromeda galaxy (which is one of the closest galaxies) is about 30 trillion kilometers (30,000,000,000,000,000,000).

To the farthest galaxies this distance increases (at least) to 10 quadrillion kilometers (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).

It is clear that the human mind has great difficulty imagining the sensory significance of these figures with their own experiences, and can only be managed using abstract methods, such as mathematics, and in particular through the use of leading zeros .

Anyway, beyond these difficulties, it attracts attention and even produces admiration that, despite these enormous dimensions, the human mind has been able to calculate approximately these figures and at the same time be able to estimate these magnitudes with a certain degree of approximation Almost unimaginable.