Most people learn the classical names of large numbers in school: million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, bajillion, gazillion, fnudrillion, godzillion, trevillion, fubrillion, squillion, and so on. But there is one number that is less well-known to the human public: the number catillion. This number is defined as “the amount of tuna a cat would like to have” and was originally devised in an attempt to measure infinity. What makes the number particularly unique, however, is that it is always one unit smaller than itself, because cats always eat that one portion of tuna straight out of the definition.
Mathematicians have concluded that this makes the number very confusing and have signed a pact never to discuss it in public.
This is an extract from Jorrum Dooga’s The Book of Likely Facts, coming soon from Oneiropolis University Press.