IT’S midnight. I’m still at my laptop, trying to answer readers’ questions about the idea I first pitched a few weeks ago-that seriously large numbers may characterise this century’s science. Questions like, “What difference does it make to people’s lives?”
Struggling with ridiculously large sets of permutations and combinations will probably change the way you take decisions on a lot of things. Coincidences, risk, odds-but the everyday examples all look mathematically woolly. There’s got to be a nice, crisp example lurking among all the possible things I can think. Ah! And how many things might that be? Fetch a large…
