# Erroneous number of atoms in the universe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 24, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715 "2012-03-24T21:46:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/1 "2012-03-24T21:46:32Z")
A few years ago there was an email being sent around claiming that there were only [impossibly small number] atoms in the universe. Obviously someone had copied-and-pasted the number, which was a 10 to a power, and the C&P did not distinguish the superscript from just a series of numbers. Does anyone remember what the erroneous number was, that was being emailed about? ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/2 "2012-03-24T21:51:33Z")
10^80 atoms was common for decades, I do not know of the source but it was very wide spread even in the 1980’s ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/3 "2012-03-24T21:53:46Z")
Just to be clear, I’m looking for the number that was being circulated by people who didn’t stop to think that if there were fewer than 1,100 atoms in the universe, there couldn’t be more than that many things. I’m not actually looking for the current scientific estimate of how many atoms there are. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/4 "2012-03-24T21:57:27Z")
I remember that, too, but I think it was caged as “Scientists are all idiots, look at this ridiculous thing they believe, obviously they’re wrong about the Big Bang and evolution, too”. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/5 "2012-03-24T22:08:45Z")
A quick Google search finds numerous results like [this one](http://www.cfiokanagan.org/published-articles/okanagan-skeptic/balancing-science-and-homeopathy/) (appears exactly as copied below): > [@](#): > > …there are only 1080 atoms in the entire observable universe… (the paragraph that appears in has nothing to do with the universe, but it certainly seems to state that there are only about 1,000 atoms in the universe) I don’t know where this phrase originally came from though; searching for that entire phrase gives over 300,000 results. ---
**Author:** ![notsoheavyd3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/85e7bf/32.png) [@notsoheavyd3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notsoheavyd3)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/6 "2012-03-24T22:21:29Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > (the paragraph that appears in has nothing to do with the universe, but it certainly seems to state that there are only about 1,000 atoms in the universe) > > I don’t know where this phrase originally came from though; searching for that entire phrase gives over 300,000 results. It looks to me that someone simply mistyped 10^80 (a 1 followed by 80 zeros) or didn’t get what that value actually meant and wrote 1080 by mistake. (And people just used it as a reference without really thinking about.) ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/7 "2012-03-24T22:21:44Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I’m not actually looking for the current scientific estimate of how many atoms there are. Oh, does that mean I can stop counting? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/8 "2012-03-24T22:31:55Z")
> [@notsoheavyd3](#): > > It looks to me that someone simply mistyped 10^80 (a 1 followed by 80 zeros) or didn’t get what that value actually meant and wrote 1080 by mistake. (And people just used it as a reference without really thinking about.) More likely, someone copied 10[sup]80[/sup], and when they pasted it, it came out as 1080. I used Preview and C&P to paste the superscripted number into this post. (And people just used it as a reference without thinking about.) ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/9 "2012-03-24T22:52:08Z")
Only 1080? Damn 113 is more than than. And 53 is more than that! And 34 is more than that. And 26 is way more than that. So, I conclude there are only about 2 dozen atoms in the whole universe. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/10 "2012-03-24T23:12:29Z")
It was a terrible joke amongst friends at a bar I used to haunt that the [Shannon Number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number) meant that if you slept with as many people as Shannon, you had to stop. This was only because we were interested in the ability of computers to play chess, but I slept with her anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/11 "2012-03-25T01:16:29Z")
In this article it’s explained why a common estimate for the number of atoms in the observable universe is 10^80: > **[Observable universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe)** > > The observable universe is a ball-shaped region of the universe comprising all matter that can be observed from Earth or its space-based telescopes and exploratory probes at the present time; the electromagnetic radiation from these objects has had time to reach the Solar System and Earth since the beginning of the cosmological expansion. Initially, it was estimated that there may be 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, although that number was reduced in 2021 to only several hun The w... ---
**Author:** ![Carnacki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@Carnacki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnacki)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/12 "2012-03-25T03:20:28Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Only 1080? Damn 113 is more than than. And 53 is more than that! And 34 is more than that. And 26 is way more than that. So, I conclude there are only about 2 dozen atoms in the whole universe. Where are ya gonna go from there? [Forget about it…](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkP_OGDCLY0) ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/13 "2012-03-25T13:45:21Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Only 1080? Damn 113 is more than than. And 53 is more than that! And 34 is more than that. And 26 is way more than that. So, I conclude there are only about 2 dozen atoms in the whole universe. 1080 is a little over 10^3 which becomes 103 which is a little over 10^2 which becomes 102 which is a little over 10^2. Oops, stuck in a loop. So there are provably 102 atoms in the universe. Stockholm here I come. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/14 "2012-03-25T13:55:11Z")
God does not restrict himself to base ten (or play dice according to some famous guy). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/15 "2012-03-25T16:32:14Z")
That famous guy only said that because he wasn’t a gamer, and thought all dice had six sides. God always rolls d10s. Except for Quetzalcoatl; he rolls d20s. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/16 "2012-03-25T16:39:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > God always rolls d10s. Except for Quetzalcoatl; he rolls d20s. The Buddha rolls a d4 & a d8. …not that he’s a god. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/17 "2012-03-25T21:02:25Z")
If a die rolls into a forest and nobody observes it…? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/18 "2012-03-25T21:21:27Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > If a die rolls into a forest and nobody observes it…? 😃 It dies alone. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/19 "2012-03-25T21:42:03Z")
Loki always rolls 1’s, but he changes the rules so 1’s are winning. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/erroneous-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe/616715/20 "2012-03-26T00:12:46Z")
Whoa, Loki is a d2 crusader?