Eli5 why it is difficult for humans to read a lot of 0s, like 2000000, but not words?

Question

Eli5 why it is difficult for humans to read a lot of 0s, like 2000000, but not words?

In: 0

Answer 1

Humans don’t actually read every letter in a word.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

So by the same token we would not be reading all the 0s in 2000000.
We’d just see a big number that starts in 2 and ends in 0, just like we see a jumble of letters as a big word.