A New Number

Yesterday, Luke's class went on a field trip to the Lafayette fire station. I asked what would have happened if while he was there an alarm went off and they asked him to come with them to help fight a fire and then when they got to the burning building they needed him to go in since he was small enough to go into the hole.

This launched Luke excitedly into an imaginative story involving him and a classmate Ethan fighting fires. In the midst of it, he said that the fire was 'a pavilion times hotter'. I asked if he meant a 'million or billion times'. Robin from the other room informed me that 'pavilion' was a number Luke created. Luke let me know, "it's more than infinity."

Then I thought, "why not?" If a pavilion is an open-air shelter or tent and the root is from Latin pāpiliō, pāpiliōn- for butterfly or tent, (i.e. no boundaries, limitless, transforming...) then why not? Sounds better than infinity times hotter.

Especially if the building burning down was a pavilion.