what does 10^^100 means? nothing!
just some thoughts on the uselessness of numbers.
there are many ways to convince people. one way is to use numbers, pictures (like graphs), and lists (like tables). this works especially well on smart people. if you're trying to convince a smart audience, it's a good idea to use numbers, pictures, and the kind of things you see in school papers. this way of showing information subconsciously influences people, and because you seem more “scientific”, they are more likely to believe you. they are used to being convinced this way their whole lives, so why not do it too? but let's look at this more closely.
we all know that people, especially those in academia or those currently pursuing academic careers, are easily convinced by numbers, pictures, and lists. let's think about how often we've been tricked this way ourselves! we've realized a weakness: we can be easily convinced without thinking about it carefully. now you're probably thinking of all those pictures in articles, presentations, and so on. and i think you should also think about how many of them you actually checked by yourself. probably none. it's normal that if you see something similar again (something shown with numbers and pictures), you'll believe it without question. so, we've gotten used to trusting numbers, which is wrong.
the reason i chose "what does 10^100 mean? nothing!" for the title of this essay is to show that a number alone doesn't “really” mean anything. for example, what does 100,000 mean? nothing! numbers are just (not just at all but in the non-math domains are just) supposed to represent the real things. even when we use units like kilometers per hour (km/h), we haven't really said anything specific! consider 1000 km/h. what does that tell you? nothing again! :) it could be the fastest speed of a plane or the slowest speed of something in space. so, even if you know the number and its measuring, you can't really judge what it means. this is true for all numbers and units!
but the problem in schools and universities is even bigger. we not only trust numbers, but we also easily make important decisions based on them. if you think about the number of papers, research projects, how often they're mentioned, and things like the 'h-index' (which can be easily misleading), you'll see the same thing. these numbers don't really mean anything and aren't important. so, you can't make good decisions based on them. i want to emphasize that these numbers aren't even helpful for making quick judgments or guessing things. they are truly "useless" except for convincing people who are used to being persuaded by such things.
the way numbers are used in business is the same: to convince. if you're using numbers for other reasons, you probably don't really understand the topic and need numbers to explain it to you! this is the biggest part of the problem and isn't a good sign. :)
i'd be happy to hear your thoughts on this essay. please feel free to send your comments to my email address, sina80mor@gmail.com, and we can chat about it then. :)