I understand the math behind it, I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that something so common and limited like a deck of cards can have more ways to be arranged than something so massive like the earth with all its oceans and mountains has atoms.
In my mind it would make more sense that even a little pond has more atoms than there are deck arrangements.
Could it be due to the fact that atoms have a lot of empty space in them?
In: 318
There are some great answers already, that count things, but let me put it this intuitive way…
Imagine that you are given the task to give a name to each atom on earth. They line up waiting for their turn and come to you one by one. And you decide that the name you are going to each atom is a particular configuration of the deck of cards. So, each atom shows up and you say “I hereby declare that your name is going to be [particular sequence]”, and the next one show up, etc. It’s just that a standard deck of card is enough to give a unique name to each atom. That’s because although there are lots of atoms, there are even more possible ways to shuffle a deck of card.
In particular that has nothing to do with the distance between atoms, just how many of them there are.
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