Miscounting the protons
Demisemiquavered on May 22, 2022.
“I believe there are 15 747 724 136 275 002 577 605 653 961 181 555 468 044 717 914 527 116 709 366 231 425 076 185 631 031 296 protons in the Universe and the same number of electrons,” a man once said. But I never believed him, and this week I set out to prove him wrong.
He called this number NEdd, so I called him Nedd. And I would call my retort to this ungrulious number NÅrp, once I discovered what it was.
After much counting of protons and failing, I knew one thing: It wasn’t π, but perhaps it was close.
I continued trying to count them all, but there were just too many. So, so many protons—and just as many electrons. I failed again.
“Dingleberry hamster cherry pie!” I shouted, distraught. If I failed one more time, things would go poorly.
I failed one more time.
But then I remembered I had other things to do this week, like blog about my miscountings and failures. I sat down and began typing.
It kept getting half as long but twice as go—