Further to that last posting, here are some more large numbers for comparison. They are taken from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_E9:
in a row in a coin toss _______________ - 1 in 10+12
- Chances of being dealt a royal
flush in Poker _____________________- 1 in 10+5.8127
- # of possible 5 card hands______________- 10+6.4148
- # of distinct astrological objects
in the the observable Universe __________- 10+8.9993
- approx. # of neurons in the
Human Brain_______________________- 10+11
- # of different positions offered by
a Rubik’s Cube _____________________- 10+19.6334
- # of different 9x9 Sodoku grids
possible __________________________- 10+21.8242
My uncle tells me that there are approximately 10+120 different possible games of chess.
Given a 26 note melody such as Mary Had a Little Lamb, and allowing the whole scope of the 12-note chromatic scale as possibilities, there are 10+28.0587 different possible melodies. Hence, anyone who claims that all of the melodies are already taken, should seriously think again. That's far more melodies than the number of centimeters between the Earth and the Sun, and back again. Then there are those that say “everything’s already been written”. To that comment I only have to suggest that the OED includes 616,500 (10+5.7899) different word forms, and that Don Quixote is 1072 pages long. Given a rough average of 400 words per page . . . my calculator refuses to even tell me how many different possible combinations there are.
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