shiners
i've stated previously that human brains are really good at intuiting numbers when all numbers involved are of a human scale. and they're really bad with really big and really small numbers. here's an example. pound for pound, which generates more power: a human being or the sun? give it a little thought before you go on. ready? okay. a typical human is somewhat less than 100 kg. and produces somewhat less than 100 watts. so about 1 watt per kilogram. a nice round number. the sun on the other hand, is really big and really bright. both numbers are really big. and by my assertion your brain is going to be really bad at predicting the output of the maths involving them. the sun produces some 10^26 watts. it's really goram bright. the sun has 10^30 kg of mostly hydrogen. the sun produces about 1 watt per 10 metric tons. which pound for pound, is 10000x less than a human being. i took a quick informal survey with this question. the results were split down the middle. half guessed sun. half guess human. however, the interesting thing is everyone who guessed human did so for sociological reasons. ie they know me. and i wouldn't be asking this question if it didn't have a crazy answer. therefore the real answer must not be the obvious answer. we've done the maths and, as unbelievable as it sounds, people really do outshine the sun.