a sneaky 'C' for Christmas special

Molly Cule · 6305. Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:07 pm

In Caracas the congregation of a Christmas morning service often roller skate to church. Some neighbourhoods close their streets to cars until 8am. On Christmas eve children tie string to their big toes and hang the end out the window, the next morning skaters tug on any string they see to wake the children.

Jenny · 6375. Sun Mar 07, 2004 11:52 am

Santa's pregnant reindeer surely have to go into the Christmas special? See post 2929

Flash · 6384. Mon Mar 08, 2004 11:18 am

In last year's I'm afraid.

Hans · 6452. Fri Mar 12, 2004 6:41 pm

Before there were hackers there were phreakers and Cap'n Crunch was the greatest of them all. See post 6451

Richard · 11956. Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:43 pm

On average, an American family sends and receives 28 Christmas cards each year.

Richard · 11958. Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:44 pm

Franklin Pierce was the first U.S. President to have a Christmas tree in the White House

Richard · 11959. Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:44 pm

* Ukrainian people celebrate Christmas on January 7th, which is the Orthodox Christmas Day.

Caradoc · 11968. Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:41 am

Caerphilly castle has a tower that leans to a greater degree than the leaning tower of pizza, its also the second largest concentric castle in europe, only surpassed by windsor

Flash · 11972. Thu Dec 09, 2004 10:56 am

Jenny · 12062. Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:03 am

Welcome Carl and Richard :-)

Um - Richard, you're not related to me by any chance, are you? Your posts don't seem quite my son's style, but one never knows.

Caradoc · 12084. Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:31 am

I was tired & in acute nicotine withdrawl
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Caradoc · 12227. Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:42 am

Counting...what is one thousand million called
Penalty: a billion

A thousand million is properly a milliard, a million million is a billion except in the USofA & consequently has permiated the public perception on this side of the pond.

How many naughts in a googol?

Mr Grue · 12245. Wed Dec 15, 2004 2:35 pm

A hundred?

I always believed the naming protocol for big numbers ran in increments of "illions", and illion being six zeroes - thus you have

a mono-illion - 1,000,000 - one million,
a bi-illion - 1,000,000,000,000 - one billion,
a tri-illion - 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 - one trillion.

This is just the conjecture of youth, mind, and may have as little to do with the way of things as Richard of York does with the spectrum.

Oh, and a googol has a nice etymology.
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Caradoc · 12248. Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:35 pm

Just looked it up & found googolplex & after reading the definition of that I need a lie down

eggshaped · 12255. Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:40 pm

The number Googol, was made famous in recent times by the search engine's malaprorism, and by being Major Ingram's £1,000,000 question on the infamous Who Wants to be a Millionnaire show.
I can say, having studied lots and lots of Mathematics and Physics, that while the stories about googols and googolplexes are all well and good. These numbers would never be used. If, by some amazing co-incidence there was a question whose answer was a factor of a googol, it's a lot easier and more accepted to say "times ten to the power of one hundred", or something similar. My understanding of these "numbers" were they were nothing more than a throwaway example by Kasner in his public lectures of how to imagine massive numbers, which was picked up on by the press. I see no reason why you couldn't name "pi to the power of three-thousand" a Carl-plex, but unless you know how to manipulate the press, it's unlikely to find its way onto "Who wants to be a Millionaire"