How can there be more ways to arrange a deck of cards than there are atoms on earth?

Question

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

Answer 1

Because volumes grow multiplicatively, but combinations grow exponentially.

If you make a thing twice as long it becomes heavier by some factor. If you add an extra card, you add to the exponent.

But all the arrangements are ‘fake’. They only exist in theory.

Earth is just sitting there, atoms and all.