# What's the largest number of things that have been counted one by one? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449 "2013-05-15T21:07:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/41 "2013-05-16T16:57:32Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The problem with counting very large quantities is that it’s difficult to postulate a situation in which it’s vital to know _exactly_ how many there are. For example, in what situation would it be essential to determine that there were 31,287,989 of something instead of 31,287,988? A vote, of course. If the machine-counted results come out too close, then there is often a manual recount, or even two. > [@lisiate](#): > > Okay, I’ll rephrase my answer to read ‘the 1,339,724,852 completed census forms for the 2010 census of the PRC’. I’m pretty sure each form can have more than one person’s details on it, at least if it’s like any census form I’ve seen. They’re usually one per household. But yeah, that’s got to be at least 300-400 million or so individual forms, even so. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/42 "2013-05-16T20:27:51Z")
Large factories must meet this requirement. Model Ts out of the River Rouge factory, for instance, must be high on the list. They were accurately counted out of one factory. Or smaller things like maybe iPhones out of a single factory or something. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/43 "2013-05-16T20:44:06Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > A vote, of course. If the machine-counted results come out too close, then there is often a manual recount, or even two. > > I’m pretty sure each form can have more than one person’s details on it, at least if it’s like any census form I’ve seen. They’re usually one per household. But yeah, that’s got to be at least 300-400 million or so individual forms, even so. Good estimate- “The census found a total of 401,517,330 family households in Mainland China.” Here in New Zealand there’s a [dwelling form and forms for each individual as well](http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/about-2013-census/2013-census-forms-guidenotes.aspx). Not sure what system China uses. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/44 "2013-05-16T20:54:28Z")
It’s a pretty small country where a census is counted one by one, otherwise it will take too long. One person would have to start counting from one, and anyone else in the process would have to wait until that first person is done before they’d know what number to start with. Instead each person involved will start counting from one, and then subtotals will be added. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/45 "2013-05-16T21:21:01Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Anyway, making sure she has exactly 50,000 pieces is a non-trivial exercise. She purchases the raw materials in bulk, but she can’t be certain that the bags from the factory contain exactly the right number. So at some point she’ll actually need to count them all to make sure they’re all there. While this doesn’t answer the question posed by the OP, the above being the premise for his question is flawed, in the sense that his friend’s counting of the 50,000 pieces will not even meet the criteria he has laid out for this thread. She also does not need to have an exact count of the 50,000 pieces, one by one. She could easily estimate and make sure that she has some margin of error with overage. That’s what most game company’s do with pieces. That’s why there are always extra pieces. ---
**Author:** ![Intelligently\_Designed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intelligently_designed/32/20957_2.png) [@Intelligently\_Designed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intelligently_Designed)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/46 "2013-05-16T22:14:54Z")
I think sports offer a good example. For instance, they knew that the [200,000th game in Major League Baseball history](http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110921&content_id=25015352&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb) was played in September 2011. Of course, it took 135 years and many, many people to count 200,000 games, but at some point they were counted one by one, so that some guy could later calculate that 162 games x 30 teams = 4230 games if every team played every game in a given season, and then add it all up. Of course, per the OP, a baseball game is not a physical thing. But the same exercise can be done with regards to the number of human beings having played in a MLB game. Or the number of tickets sold. ---
**Author:** ![Uncertain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/47 "2013-05-18T21:23:10Z")
Enormous numbers of cells are routinely [counted by machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_cytometry). It really is a “one-by-one” counting, as they go by a detector. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/48 "2013-05-19T01:26:12Z")
There are beta radiation gages that count beta particles constantly, around the clock, for years, at the rate of around half a million per second. I figure that is counting about a hundred trillion physical objects. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/49 "2013-05-19T17:25:36Z")
I really don’t understand why some people can’t comprehend what the OP is asking for. It was obvious to some of us from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/50 "2013-05-19T18:20:49Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I really don’t understand why some people can’t comprehend what the OP is asking for. It was obvious to some of us from the beginning. Did you count how many people it was obvious to? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/51 "2013-05-19T21:32:42Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > While this doesn’t answer the question posed by the OP, the above being the premise for his question is flawed, in the sense that his friend’s counting of the 50,000 pieces will not even meet the criteria he has laid out for this thread. > > She also does not need to have an exact count of the 50,000 pieces, one by one. She could easily estimate and make sure that she has some margin of error with overage. That’s what most game company’s do with pieces. That’s why there are always extra pieces. It’s an art game project where the precise number of pieces is significant. So yes, she will be making sure there are exactly 50,000 of them. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/52 "2013-05-20T05:02:01Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Did you count how many people it was obvious to? Yes, and it’s not a very large number. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/53 "2013-05-20T06:57:57Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire? Bottles of beer on the wall. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/54 "2013-05-20T12:24:08Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > It’s an art game project where the precise number of pieces is significant. So yes, she will be making sure there are exactly 50,000 of them. So she cannot have less than 50,000. What harm is caused by having 50,002? ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/55 "2013-05-21T03:46:31Z")
My interpretation of the OP is something that is countable and measurable by a third party. You can’t accurately count how big the population of a country is because it changes every hour, and you can’t say for certain whether a computer has measured exactly the number of photons that have passed through the eye of a needle. My guess is stars (over a fixed luminosity); it take eons for the number to change and you can check the count every night. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/56 "2013-05-21T04:52:22Z")
> [@FuzzyOgre](#): > > So she cannot have less than 50,000. What harm is caused by having 50,002? It’s a concept piece. It’s important that there be exactly 50,000 pieces. She’s also hand-painting them. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/57 "2013-05-21T07:22:52Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > It’s a concept piece. It’s important that there be exactly 50,000 pieces. She’s also hand-painting them. Oh ok. I thought it was a production model. One of a kind is a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/58 "2013-05-21T16:51:54Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I really don’t understand why some people can’t comprehend what the OP is asking for. It was obvious to some of us from the beginning. Because it is the SDMB. A large (but uncountable) percentage of posters consider it their job to prove the OP wrong or imprecise. If he had asked how many heads were on Mount Rushmore, there would have been a lively discussion about if this includes maintenance workers and any birds/insects that happen to be standing on it at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/59 "2013-05-21T18:32:29Z")
How about dollar bills? A particular production run of Dollar Bills is a closed set, individually counted and serialized. The Treasury prints, what, a few billion of the things every year? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449/60 "2013-05-21T20:08:33Z")
It’s not a complete count as presumably they are still adding to it, but how about astronomers counting stars? The [USNO-B1.0 Catalog](http://www.nofs.navy.mil/projects/pmm/catalogs.html)contains over a billion stars (1,042,618,261 according to wikipedia). These are all unique physical, fixed and referenced one at a time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-largest-number-of-things-that-have-been-counted-one-by-one/658449.md?page=4)