This week’s Improbable Big Mathematics Exercise is to predict when the next big wave of big science journals will be published.
The current biggest wave of big science journals is exemplified by the journal Gigascience. (Warning: Their logo, displayed here, may confuse matters. It seems to imply that they are dealing not with giga science, whatever that is, but with giga-to-the-nth-power science, where n is not specified. If the value of n is infinite, then so is the science. If the value of n is zero, then the science is solitary. If the value of n is negative, we are looking towards the other end of the scale, descending towards tininess…)
The preceding wave is exemplified by the journals International Journal of Nanoscience and Journal of Nanoscience and Technology.
The metric prefixes for large numbers have names that, as time goes on, become more familiar:
yotta-
zetta-
exa-
peta-
tera-
giga-
mega-
THE EXERCISE: Look up the dates that the existing journals were founded. Then use your favorite mathematical estimation technique to estimate the date when we can expect to see publication of journals called Terascience, Exascience, Petascience, Zettascience, and Yottascience. (Note: The journal Terra Nova and its ilk do not count, for the purpose discussed here. Terra is not tera, except maybe under very particular circumstances.)