ephmrl

Ten years ago when I was doing my PhD, I wrote to my supervisor to tell him there were more stars in the Universe than previously thought. I can’t remember the humongous number but it was big, bigger than the previous number which was already humongous anyway. He ignored my email. He ignored most of my emails, and letters, and postcards. And most of our consultations quickly turned into discussions of impending changes to University policy. Now here comes the news that are even more stars in the universe than previously estimated. Three times as many, bringing the number to 300 sextillion, give or take a few. That’s 300 with 21 zeros after it: 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Ah well.