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> The magnitude of 2^256 is close to the count of atoms in the entire observable universe.

I've always heard that even 2¹²⁸ is significantly larger than that number (which is closer to 2⁸⁰). This page seems to support that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Matter_con...



Look more carefully, the estimation according to Wikipedia is 10^80, which is roughly 2^266.

(BTW, when converting 10^x to 2^x, times 3 is what I use for very rough back of the envelope estimations. Times 10/3 is actually almost precise, as log2(10) = 3.32…)


Ah, so it's just me being stupid, as usual. Thanks, at least now I know.


> log2(10) = 3.32

or, to put it in simpler terms,

10^3 = 1000 ≈ 1024 = 2^10


Nope, the rough approximation of atoms in the universe is O(10^80). Big difference!


Quickly checking with Python...

2^265 < 10^80 > 2^266

So it's only 0.1% of the number of atoms in the universe?


“Only”.




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