For readers who just skimmed over 23,000,000,000,000, and didn't parse it as "two to the three trillion" (e.g. Eric on his first reading), it may be helpful to more explicitly call out that this "three trillion" is the same number that was in the exponent earlier.
(I tried previewing a couple of page edits, like replacing 23,000,000,000,000 with 23 trillion, but wasn't able to find anything that I liked.)
Would be nice to be able to see explicitly why this is so. Not everyone can do powers of two in their heads.
Also, I just caught myself remembering that to compute how many wheels I need to store a number, I just need to count the digits! Would be nice to remind the reader of this on this page the first time it's needed.
I was slightly confused for the next two paragraphs, because I had a silly thought that 10,001 uses only two kinds of digits and would therefore be cheaper to store.
Is this a typo? Shouldn't you buy coins if they are a better deal? Or am I missing something?
This part is especially clear.
I think this paragraph and the preceding paragraph would be great opportunities for hidden-text homework problems.
For readers who just skimmed over 23,000,000,000,000, and didn't parse it as "two to the three trillion" (e.g. Eric on his first reading), it may be helpful to more explicitly call out that this "three trillion" is the same number that was in the exponent earlier.
(I tried previewing a couple of page edits, like replacing 23,000,000,000,000 with 23 trillion, but wasn't able to find anything that I liked.)
I think we don't need that much handholding. You've got to let people figure out some of the connections themselves :-p
Would be nice to be able to see explicitly why this is so. Not everyone can do powers of two in their heads.
Also, I just caught myself remembering that to compute how many wheels I need to store a number, I just need to count the digits! Would be nice to remind the reader of this on this page the first time it's needed.
I was slightly confused for the next two paragraphs, because I had a silly thought that 10,001 uses only two kinds of digits and would therefore be cheaper to store.