The author's casual mention of 52! at the opening of the article triggered an OLD webpage that I saw many years ago
https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Anyone know how to determine the age of this page (it's got be at least 20yrs old)
It was made during the brief XHTML craze. (And it's also invalid XHTML)
To me it feels like a smuggled exponentation. If I take half of 52 and raise it to itself and add a base unit to it like grams or meters, that's an incomprehensibly large amount.
The main.css file it imports dates itself to March 9 of 2005, and is housed in an "ancient history" section of the website that covers everything before October 26, 2010, so: "sometime between those two years" =P
52 cards is the first thing I think of when I think factorials. It's such a great and relatable way to convey the subject to people, plus it usually ends up blowing their minds like it did mine when I first learned of it. Not from this page, but from a YT vid many moons ago.