10k? 100k? A million?
I am not talking about calculating with numbers, but rather the point where numbers stop being comprehensible, or “no longer mean anything”.
Try visualizing exactly 10000 apples in your mind.
Edit: What I’ve gathered so far from the answers:
Visualizing: <10
You’re quite optimistic. I recall from old Psych classes that visualization breaks down even before double digits, so the 5-9 range. Don’t have any references at hand so I might be misremembering it, but now I’m curious too and will see if I can find anything in my notes.
I got about 50000k but I’m in local politics
As an average, I usually see the number 7 bandied around. After that we start “chunking” where each group becomes its own conceptual object.
This is why phone numbers without the area code have 7 digits in North America.
That’s not quite the same thing - the 7 digit phone number has more to do with short-term memory capacity than visual perception. Miller’s Law of short-term memory is we can store 7 +/- 2 items at a time, depending how complex they are.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
Oh, I was way off, then.
7 sounds about right. When I see a number of stuff in front of me I can quickly grasp how many there are up to about 7. 8 already becomes two fours. 9 is 3x3 or 4+5 depending on how the objects are clustered.
Though I think I can estimate up to about a thousand. Usually by comparing to stuff I have already seen in that ballpark.
Interesting. I thought you could split numbers into “bundles” (1 bundle of 5 apples, 10 bundles of those, for example).
Edit: Or imagine 5 and then start doubling over and over.
Yes, but then you’re not comprehending all the numbers. There’s no difference between imagining 5 googolplex and 5 dragons.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * x * * * * * * * * * * * *This is how I visualize up to 16 (x is the centre of my focus). I don’t think I can go any higher though