Talk:2319: Large Number Formats

Scientist avoiding rounding

Would love an explanation of the scientist avoiding rounding one. Would make sense to me with 2.525997..., but as 2.5997... I'm at a loss!

(The above was posted (anonymously?) seconds before I could get mine in, so here it is in the original format.)

This is probably completely irrelevant but it seems Randall made a small typo when trying to show a "Scientest trying to avoid rounding up." I assume it should be 2.525997*10^13. It seems he left out a 5 and a 2 and I say such because whether he forgot the 52 or 25 is up for debate.

Relevant screenshot: [[1]]

Also, if I'm just being completely daft and am missing something completely, please feel free to criticize me harshly and I'll go back to my little hideyhole. 108.162.237.24 22:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

In reality, a scientist would probably say 6.416*10^13 cm. (Although possible counterpoint, this comic is really about the number 25,259,974,097,204, not the distance 25,259,974,097,204 inches.) 172.69.33.207 22:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe the "2.5997" was intentional, or at least I thought it was when reading it. At first I thought it was a typo, but Randall calls that number "Scientist trying to avoid rounding up" which makes me think Randall intentionally made that "mistake" as if the scientist had accidentally forgotten the first two digits (25) and used the remainder of the number (259974...), rounding it to "2.5997x10^13" Kirypto (talk) 23:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)