How big does a number have to be before we'll call it a BIG Number? You might think that a hundred is big, or a thousand, or a million. But among some groups of people, before modern ideas about counting spread around the world from Europe, it was possible to count only to three. They had no way to describe any large numbers, except by saying "Lots". their counting system would be "one, two, three, lots". If we counted like this, wouldn't maths be a whole lot easier? However it would be hard to cope with our modern world.
What we mean by a Big Number depends on what we are measuring. A thousand people would be a big crowd, but it would be a very small number of atoms or bacteria. The Big Numbers relate to what they are measuring. Some are bigger than others, but they are all big in their own way.
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