Let's Build A Thing...

The Unfathomably Large Size of Tiny Things


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What if a simple grid of pixels contained the visual blueprint for everything that has ever existed... and everything that ever will?

Welcome back to the Let's Build a Thing universe! In this episode, hosts Theo and Chloe dive into a mind-bending thought experiment about dimensions, time, and the sheer scale of "digital molecules". It starts with a simple premise: what if, instead of creatively designing digital art, you simply wrote an algorithm to generate every possible combination of a tiny 8x8 monochrome pixel grid?

It sounds like a fun, straightforward coding concept - until you realize what happens when you let the algorithm run. By simply generating every combination of those tiny squares, you are mathematically guaranteed to recreate an 8-bit representation of every great artwork, every human face at every age, and every word ever written. You would essentially be generating everything that has been, or ever will be.

There is a catch. A massive, mind-boggling catch regarding the scale of this project that forces us to temporarily delete the very concept of time just to comprehend it.

Tune in to discover the staggering truth hiding inside a tiny digital space, and find out why procrastinating on a simple coding project for 37 years might actually be the most logical response to the unfathomably large size of tiny things.

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Let's Build A Thing...By Wayne Cope