Source: The Book of Nothing (2009), chapter nought "Nothingology—Flying to Nowhere"
“There are 1011 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.”
from a 1987 class, as quoted in David L. Goodstein, "Richard P. Feynman, Teacher," Physics Today, volume 42, number 2 (February 1989) p. 70-75, at p. 73
Republished in the "Special Preface" to Six Easy Pieces (1995), p. xx.
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Richard Feynman 181
American theoretical physicist 1918–1988Related quotes
Spoken as a jest to one of his officers named Gisgo, who had remarked on the numbers of Roman forces against them before the Battle of Cannae (2 August 216 BC), as quoted in A History of Rome (1855), by Henry George Liddell Vol. 1, p. 355
Variant translation: You forget one thing Gisgo, among all their numerous forces, there is not one man called Gisgo.
Source: Group Theory in the Bedroom (2008), Chapter 11, Identity Crisis, p. 206 (See also: George Cantor)
When asked to estimate the number of casualties terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, at a news conference (11 September 2001) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/11/bn.42.html; this is often misquoted as "More than we can bear."
“But judge us not by our number. Rather, watch the numbers of dead we leave behind”
Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 16
Context: One hundred only, Lord Earl. But judge us not by our number. Rather, watch the numbers of dead we leave behind.
"Paul Erdős and the Rise of Statistical Thinking in Elementary Number Theory" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cU0g9dI1S8&t=9m40s (July, 2013) Erdős Centennial Conference, Budapest.