It’s been a while since I’ve seen a word that’s actually been around for a long time, but that I’d never heard before (or read it, in this case): zenzizenzizenzic, a number to the eighth power. I read about this word and its meaning in Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Emerging Technologies by Jack Uldrich. I’m reading this book for a report I’m writing for my MBA coursework and I’ve found it to be thought-provoking and entertaining–which is always more fun than a dry textbook! The author uses the example: 256 is the zenzizenzizenzic of 28.
The author talks about using zenzizenzizenzic to think ahead to emerging technologies–to not only read about the developments in nanotechnology, robotics, genetic algorithms, and biotechnology, but to stay ahead of the information, we must anticipate the myriad applications that could be made possible by these developments–creations that these technologies weren’t necessarily created for and maybe haven’t even been thought of before!
I googled ‘zenzizenzizenzic’ and found that, unfortunately, it has fallen out of favor in the world of mathematics (from whence it came), but I’m glad to have found such a fun word before it disappeared from our society altogether.
I highly recommend this book, as well–it’s quite enjoyable!
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