Word: quadrillion
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...have been lead guitarists. Just think of: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Lou Reed, Albert King, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy. They have more talent in their respective pinky toenails than the Backstreet Boys would have if they multiplied their talent by a quadrillion. Yup. Multiplying zero by any positive integer still yields zero...
...result is one of the great statistical zingers of our age: every month, 4 quadrillion transistors are produced, more than half a million for every human on the planet. Intel's space-suited workers etch more than 7 million, in lines one four-hundredth the thickness of a human hair, on each of its thumbnail-size Pentium II chips, which sell for about $500 and can make 588 million calculations a second...
Computer scientists benefit from vox-pop research too. In 1994, four encryption experts enlisted 600 Internet volunteers to crack a secret code protected by a software "key" 129 digits long. Its creators had estimated that it would take 40 quadrillion years to solve the puzzle; the online team did it in eight months and in the process gave software designers new insights into building better security systems. Hackers have become so adept at finding security holes in the Internet that Netscape, maker of the leading Web browser, pays a bounty for any chinks in the program's encryption armor that...
...ensures that not enough active ingredient is left to do any harm. But it also ensures that not enough is left to do any good. Consumer Reports in July examined homeopathic treatments for vaginal yeast infections, noting that the 28X dilution means that "the mixture had 10 trillion quadrillion times as much of the inert ingredients as active ingredients." To stimulate the body's defenses with little--or none--of the original medication, scientists contend, would require a miracle...
...dumber than hauling 85 tons of Antarctic ice halfway around the world to be showcased at Expo '92 in Seville? Hauling it back again. The Chileans are doing just that, thanks to environmentalists who railed against desecrating the frozen continent. Never mind that the theft left approximately 100 quadrillion tons of the stuff still intact; the ice is now in Valparaiso, soon to head south in an insulated container. Antarctica will be whole -- and the atmosphere will have to absorb an extra load of pollution, the by-product of fuel burned in shipping the berg back home...