Our 5 year-old son came to me the other day and asked, “Mommy, how do you say this number?” He had been busy with his refrigerator magnets for roughly 10 minutes, while I was getting dinner on the table.
He proudly showed me the refrigerator and asked me what I thought. “Wow, Johann! That’s a big number!”, I exclaimed, as I started examining it.
“Well, Mommy, how do you say it?” He was already getting impatient with me.
“Just a minute, please, Sweetie. This is a really big number. I need a minute to think.” Then I counted back as far as I could go. Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions- what comes after that? College did not prepare me for this! Then I thought, wait, how long is this number anyway? I counted 35 digits.
“Well, Mommy?”, he persisted.
“I don’t know, Sweetie. We need to find a reference and look it up. Let’s ask Daddy if he can find something online. Daddy? Can you Google or find a mathematician or something online to answer Johann’s question? He has a 35 digit number here he wants to know how to say.”
“A WHAT?!”
I explained our request again and thanked God for the information available on the web. I also made another mental note as to why we are homeschooling. How in the world would our son be challenged in a kindergarten classroom where his peers are learning the numbers 1 – 20 and he can already count beyond 150, add and subtract, and now has questions about numbers that are 35 digits long?
Eric quickly found a source. We looked at both the American and English systems, comparing the two. Since the American system is the predominant method used in science now, we focused on that the most. Now we all know that Johann’s magnet number is:
11 decillion, 111 nonillion, 111 octillion, 110 septillion, 70 sextillion, 810 quintillion, 70 quadrillion, 383 trillion, 662 billion, 224 million, 455 thousand, 916. Whew!
Post a Comment