Ten Up
#84
TEN UP
10^0
Ten to the zero is really just one,
positive power, its a whole, not a part.
We don’t move from the decimal,
it’s just where we start.
10^3
Ten cubed, or a kilo,
when dealing in drugs.
It’s a measure in metrics,
it’s the math of the thugs.
10^6
Ten to the sixth, or one million we say,
a number so big, you truly will cringe.
It’s the needed storeage for data,
we’ll use to stream in a binge.
10^9
Ten to the ninth! A billion or look...
it’s near the wealth of Bill Gates.
He’s fifty times this base and exponent,
let’s buy his stock at the lowest rates.
10^12
Ten to the twelfth, a trillion, so great!
In the Lascaux caves with ancient heart,
it’s the number of years,
since they painted this art.
10^15
Ten to the fifteenth, a quadrillion for scale,
one hundred seventy light-years, is this.
We could travel to Kappa Andromedae b,
a Super Jupiter planet, we’d not wanna miss.
10^18
Ten to the eighteenth, just a quintillion!
It’s all for the counting in our niche,
in molecules, for one drop of water,
or gains of sand on one beach.
10^ 21
Ten to the twenty-first, or sextillion, not less,
while counting this high to figure it out.
It’s the stars in the universe,
in total, on their misty nebula route.
10^24
Ten to the twenty-fourth, septillion the count.
It’s a layer of dollars covering the ground,
a blanket of money, each inch of the earth,
a kilometer thick, and easily found.
10^-3 and falling...
Be glad I didn’t go this other way,
with negative exponents dividing so small.
A ten raised to three, going left to a minus,
to Planck scale and shrinking, to nothing at all.
Given the powers of ten for such ease,
dividing with negatives, or growing in positives.
You’ll find you won’t need to write so many zeros,
when grappling big numbers and their causatives.
When meeting the sciences with powers of ten,
then quite easily, you’ll see all the fun!
Writing scales of the universe, or quantum realms,
in plus or minus, starting with zero, or one.
-Edlynn Nau
©April 2, 2019
For anyone trying to understand huge numbers!
Inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and by students trying to
make sense of scale.
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