2 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2016–2024score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Cited for its well-known attempt to convey the size of 52 factorial.
Vsauce explores math through card tricks and big numbers, including an animation of how enormous 52 factorial, the number of deck orderings, really is.
“Vsauce has a fantastic animation of this too” (HN, 2016)
Vsauce has a fantastic animation of this too: [this video] Deal yourself five cards every billion years. When you finally deal yourself a royal flush, buy a lottery ticket. If the ticket wins the lottery, throw a single grain of sand into the Grand Canyon. As soon as the Grand Canyon is completely full of sand, remove one ounce of rock from Mount Everest. By the time Mount Everest is level: take a look at the clock. You'll have to do the whole thing all over again 256 more times before your timer reaches zero.
The number you're thinking of is 52! (52 factorial) and how long it would take for 52! seconds to pass by. Vsauce has a great video on this, and might be where that example was taken from. [this video] That example starts 16 minutes into the video: [this video] But it's worth watching the whole thing.
A commonly quoted number for the number of particles in the observable universe is 10^80 give or take a few orders of magnitude an they have very roughly 10^10^10^2 permutations if you consider all particles distinguishable. The best known lower bound for BB(6, 2) seems to be 10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10 which is more like the number of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of permutations of the particles in the universe. Trying to comprehend or compare the size of BB(745) is just futile. Here [1] is a well known attempt to convey the size of 52!, the number of permutations of a deck of cards. [1] [this video]
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