Nice Numbers: A follow up

I think I've taken up a bigger challenge than I thought when I decided to try and give players of 'Create' a sense of the magnitude of the number they are working with.

I had the idea of representing the numbers using a grid representing the chessboard in the wheat and chessboard problem. I soon realised however that all I was doing was changing the representation of the number into binary, bringing me back to the original problem.

I've been thinking of an analogy to this problem and I think I have it, so bear with me.

Take this sentence for example: "The old man died."
What sort of images and ideas come to your mind?

If I change that sentence to: "The old man was murdered."
What sort of things do you think of then? Probably very different and maybe more violent images.

Now imagine somebody who has never been introduced to the concept of murder, would they have the same images come to their mind? The only reason the word 'murder' carries the weight it does is because of what experiences the reader associates with the word. If the reader has no concept of the word murder, it doesn't matter how you write it or in what language, they will not fully comprehend what you are saying.

It's the same problem with huge numbers. Most of us have an idea of quantities in the millions or billions, which is why I wouldn't have a problem if the numbers in the game were that small. However we rarely, if ever deal with numbers the size in this game. When you convert 10^50 helium atoms to create a star, I don't think any experience you've had before can help you relate to this number.

It makes sense that the only way to adequately describe these numbers is to relate them to something people are already familiar with. If you don't know how much one quadrillion is, it's easily explained as one thousand-trillion. You just take an unfamiliar concept and break it down into two familiar ones: 'Thousand' and 'Trillion'. Maybe the best way to convey the number 10^50 is by the amount of game time required to reach that point?