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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: VERY LARGE main memories: crypt
Message-ID: <1820@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 17:59:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.1820
Posted: Thu Sep 18 17:59:23 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Sep-86 22:06:48 EDT
References: <1178@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU> <1087@ihwpt.UUCP> <553@astroatc.UUCP> <1124@tekig5.UUCP> <1126@tekig5.UUCP> <645@faron.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 19

In article <645@faron.UUCP> bs@faron.UUCP writes:
> The point of all this is that the known mass can be
>used to get an estimate on the number of atoms in the universe. It is
>something like 10^78 or 10^79. There are therefore at least that number
>of electrons.

This assumes that most of the mass in the universe is in the form of
ordinary matter -- protons, neutrons, and electrons.  This assumption is
very much in question these days.  Proposed alternatives include everything
from neutrinos to topological singularities left over from shortly after the
big bang.

The visible matter in the universe is about an order of magnitude less than
amount needed to close the universe.  This is a better lower bound on the
number of electrons -- it seems unlikely that stars contain any significant
quantity of such exotic mass.

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108