alt Hacker News> For some context, a billion years at a 20 minute breeding cycle is 26.3 trillion generations.
Which if you want an actual feel for the true scale of things, must be multiplied by (order of magnitude) the number of bacteriums on the planet.
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mmooss • today at 5:10 AM
Is that true for evolution? If that math works, it seems that any one bacterium's mutation must become universal across the globe? Evolution works but not for every instance of a beneficial mutation. I wonder what the odds are for bacteria.
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zimpenfish • yesterday at 7:58 AM
Good point, forgot about that. Add another 10-20 zeros?
> Which if you want an actual feel for the true scale of things
The caveat is that more zeros do nothing for our comprehension of the scale. That's the problem because most people can't comprehend how evolution is even possible. We just don't have a mental model for a trillion, it's all the same to us after a certain threshold.