The symbol representing the largest Roman cardinal numeral is M, thousand. In my childhood the number thousand meant the border between the real and the fantastic.
A thousand escudos was the highest-value banknote in circulation, real money. A thousand ways to make cod is an almost infinite amount, yet achievable. Mille-feuille is a cake with so many leaves that it seems impossible to manufacture, but you can do it (I even undid one to count them and I was 28 at last). Already “a thousand and one nights”, or “a thousand and one ghosts” are tales about the fantastic, adding a unit was enough to move to the other side of the mirror. As he grew he discovered larger numbers, but the psychological pattern of the thousand remained constant, multiplying it to larger quantities. In the 20th century, almost MM years AD, 2000 Odyssey in Space would never stimulate the imagination, 2001 yes, it allowed us to dream.
When I started playing flipper games, the machines had 5 digits, adding points was a difficult but rewarding task. Subsequently 8 and 9 digit machines appeared, a mere dropped target gave thousands of points; not feeling the relation of my effort to the result, I soon lost interest. What’s the difference?
*Musician and Ambassador of Plataforma
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