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More stars or leaves? !


Guest peepshow

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Guest peepshow

My wife asked me was there was any subject not covered in some way on the internet.


I said no but then I thought..........


 


.We are told on the internet  that there are more stars than grains of sand on Earth.


 


But are there more stars in the Universe than there are leaves on all the trees/bushes when in bloom on Earth?   :)


Not that I really wish  to know. :lol:


 


 


 


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Without shadow of doubt yes, way more stars than leaves. There are way more grains of sand than there are leaves.


 


If you're after some peace for a bit, tell her to go count all the leaves she can find ;)


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As a very rough guide, the estimated leaves are 8e16 where as grains of sand on the beaches (so doesn't include on the sea beds) is 7.5e18


 


Whist that may not seem much different, that is a little under 100 x as many.


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Guest peepshow

are we counting all the leaves that have ever been here or just the ones you can see ;)

You can count either way.

 

Another poser going on from that  is, are there more stars than words ever spoken by the human race ever.

NOW, that must be a closely run contest. :)

 

Mike, where did the leaves estimate come from?

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I did a search on google which came up with an estimated 400Bn trees etc and an average of 20,000 leaves per specimen. It's only a rough estimate of course, but so too are the figures for stars and grains of sand. I guess the numbers of any of these will never be known. Especially since the number of stars will be changing at any given snapshot of time along with grains of sand and leaves.


 


Words spoken.............. we will never know that either, all I do know is that some folks speak way too much! :lol: (not inferring anything about anybody here BTW)


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are we counting all the leaves that have ever been here or just the ones you can see ;)

 

In a silly attempt to expand on what Sheila said, and with regard to Mikes final comment above, I will keep my post extremely brief just as I always do. :facepalm:

Working from the following...

Mikes figures on the number of leaves on earth now,

the fact that land plants have been on earth for at least 400 million years (depending on your religious persuasion),

assuming that plants shed old leaves and grow new leaves once a year,

since some plants are evergreen and don't shed leaves, the above might roughly compensate for the far greater number of leaves during the carboniferous era,

not including leaves growing under water.

The above suggests something in the ball park of 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 leaves have ever been on earth.

In the British system this is 3 Quadrillion

In the American system this is 3 Septillion

Which is easily written as 3 x 1024 give or take a few hundred trilliard.

 

Hope this helps, wouldn't want anyone losing sleep over it  :D .

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Latest estimate of Stars is approx 7e23 (7 with 23 zeros after it) so reasonably close. That said though there have been periods where there were more plants and trees etc, and periods with far less (ice ages for instance)


 


The big question is though, are there more stars in the universe or missing biros?


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According to google, there are 70 Sextillion (7 x 1022) stars in the universe, which is in the order of 100 times less than the number of leaves that have ever been on earth.


 


But of course, my figures could be way out :) .


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Guest peepshow

As coincidence would have it today's Google logo  is of falling leaves from line of trees. :)


 


More coincidences in the World than biros lost  ;)

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-----since some plants are evergreen and don't shed leaves-----

Except they do, just not all at once ;) you need to add a few more into the leaf figure :wacko:

That's my input, very in depth and detailed lol.

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In the British system this is 3 Quadrillion

In the American system this is 3 Septillion

Don't forget that Americans can't count! What I mean is an American billion is alot less than an English billion by a factor of 100!! This might account for the differing numbers.

It's interesting that the news never point this out when talking money!

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-is-a-billion

Edited by tuckstar
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Except they do, just not all at once ;) you need to add a few more into the leaf figure :wacko:

That's my input, very in depth and detailed lol.

 

Hi Cazz, we could add a few hundred billion billion leaves to that total and it would still be 3 Quadrillion :) .

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In the British system this is 3 Quadrillion

In the American system this is 3 Septillion

Don't forget that Americans can't count! What I mean is an American billion is alot less than an English billion by a factor of 100!! This might account for the differing numbers.

It's interesting that the news never point this out when talking money!

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-is-a-billion

 

The British system is much more logical and easier to work with than the American one.

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Hi Cazz, we could add a few hundred billion billion leaves to that total and it would still be 3 Quadrillion :) .

I see - not :wacko::unsure:

but they are very pretty aren't they ;)

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Guest peepshow

I estimated that there are 56,000,000,000,000,000 words uttered by the human race in a generation (20 years)


 


Oh, my wife has just shouted at me, so make that 56,000,000,000,000,001 :D


 


So we have some way to go to reach the stars...........in more ways than one !


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OK Cazz lets add a hundred billion billion to 3 septillion (American) :o...


 


3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 + 100,000,000,000,000,000,000


=


3,000,100,000,000,000,000,000,000


 


Not much difference :) .

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OK Cazz lets add a hundred billion billion to 3 septillion (American) :o...

3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 + 100,000,000,000,000,000,000

=

3,000,100,000,000,000,000,000,000

Not much difference :) .

It's not really is it, we've both learnt something today. ;)

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Douglas Adams had this to say on the subject of leaves


 


“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich. 


"But we have also," continued the management consultant, "run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying on ship's peanut."


"So in order to obviate this problem," he continued, "and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and...er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances.â€


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