Among those who are known for purchasing enough chocolate pudding to earn 1,253,000 miles and cashing in on coins from the United States Mint, one frequent flier has become a legend in the annals of the history of FlyerTalk for an accomplishment most travelers will never even hope to dream to achieve.
Frequent Flier to Become a Million Miler 23 Times Over in 2022
Not one to let a worldwide pandemic stop him, when Tom Stuker — who is known on FlyerTalk as ua1flyer and typically flies greater than one million miles per year with United Airlines — posts anything which has to do with reaching the next milestone of flying frequently, you can bet your money that it will become true, as this is what he wrote on Tuesday, October 26, 2021: “Just passed 22,250,000 yesterday flying home from Hawaii. Only gives me 200,000 BIS for the year. I have a bunch of flights before the end of the year and I’ll probably just hit 300,000 BIS, my lowest total in 33 years! I really doubt I will ever fly a million miles a year again ( 6 times was enough) , but I really want to hit 23 million by the end of 2022.”
For clarification purposes, BIS means butt in seat miles — as opposed to earning miles through credit cards and other means without flight activity.
Speaking of clarification, what is a trevigintillionaire? For the answer to that question, three sources were used.
This document from the faculty of the mathematics department at the University of Illinois was written by Carol Castellon with cited sources: “If you count to a trillion dollars one by one at a dollar a second, you will need 31,710 years. Our government spends over three billion per day. At that rate, Washington is going through a trillion dollars in a less than one year. . or about 31,708 years faster than you can count all that money!” According to the aforementioned document, “According to many books (such as Mathematics, A human Endeavor by Harold Jacobs) the googol is one of the largest numbers ever named. The googolplex is 1 followed by a googol zeros. More recently, Skewer’s number is the largest number ever used in a mathematical proof. (Let’s hope we never hear about the National Debt in terms of Skewer’s number!) The centillion is 100 groups of 3 zeros beyond 1000, which follows the American convention of naming numbers.”
The list of large numbers is generally as follows:
- million = 1×106
- billion = 1×109
- trillion = 1×1012
- quadrillion = 1×1015
- quintillion = 1×1018
- sextillion = 1×1021
- septillion = 1×1024
- octillion = 1×1027
- nonillion = 1×1030
- decillion = 1×1033
- undecillion = 1×1036
- duodecillion = 1×1039
- tredecillion = 1×1042
- quattuordecillion = 1×1045
- quindecillion = 1×1048
- sexdecillion = 1×1051
- septemdecillion = 1×1054
- octodecillion = 1×1057
- novemdecillion = 1×1060
- vigintillion = 1×1063
- unvigintillion = 1×1066
- duovigintillion = 1×1069
- trevigintillion or vigintitrillion = 1×1072
- quattuorvigintillion or vigintiquadrillion = 1×1075
- quinvigintillion or vigintiquintrillion = 1×1078
- sexvigintillion or vigintisextillion = 1×1081
- septvigintillion or vigintiseptillion = 1×1084
- octovigintillion or vigintoctillion = 1×1087
- nonvigintillion or vigintinonillion = 1×1090
- trigintillion = 1×1093
- untrigintillion = 1×1096
- duotrigintillion = 1×1099
- ten-duotrigintillion or googol = 1×10100
- tretrigintillion = 1×10102
- quattuortrigintillion = 1×10105
- quintrigintillion = 1×10108
- sextrigintillion = 1×10111
- septentrigintillion = 1×10114
- octotrigintillion = 1×10117
- novemtrigintillion = 1×10120
- skewer’s number = 1×10130
- centillion = 1×10303
- googolplex = 1×1010100
For reference purposes — using trevigintillion as an example — 1×1072 means 1 followed by 72 zeros, or when written out: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This may not display well on a mobile telephone.
The second source is this article from R.S. Schaeffer of the University of Kutztown in Pennsylvania, which is also an interesting guide to naming large numbers: “To name a large number, first change the number into one which is expressed as N x 10n, where n is a multiple of 3 and N is between 1 and 999 (starting at the end of the number, use commas to break the number up into groups of three digits). Read N in the normal fashion, followed by the correct word from the list below for the rest of the number. (If the power of 10 is larger than 120, proceed to the bottom of the page.)”
The third source is Nasdaq — yes, the stock exchange in New York — you know, in case you actually earn your first trevigintillion by trading stocks.
Final Boarding Call
When you hear someone using terms such as zillion, bajillion, gazillion, or TheGate-illion, you can now tell that person that such a number does not exist; and you can give him or her a choice of exactly which large number he or she would like to choose to state his or her point.
In the meantime, I have no doubt that Tom Stuker will reach that next milestone of 23 million miles sometime before the end of the year 2022 — and at that point, he will be congratulated by his contemporaries and colleagues…
…but I do not believe he will ever become a trevigintillionaire miler — although you never know with Tom Stuker…
Photograph ©2015 by Brian Cohen.
