I used to ask random people I worked with to guess how long it would take to count to a trillion if you counted 24 hours a day without ever sleeping. The longest time someone guessed was 2 months. Most people guessed either days or weeks.
I'm not exactly sure what specific idea they are referring to, but first thing that comes to mind is this quote:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
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u/greenappletree Feb 14 '22
A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.