1010123 represents what mathematicians call a hyper-exponential number—10 raised to the 10th power (or 10 billion) raised again to the 123rd power. To put that number in perspective, it might help to note that physicists have estimated that the whole universe contains “only” 1080 elementary particles (a huge number—1 followed by 80 zeroes). But that number nevertheless represents a minuscule fraction of 1010123.13 In fact, if we tried to write out this number with a 1 followed by all the zeros that would be needed to represent it accurately without the use of exponents, there would be more
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