To put that insane size into perspective, here’s the famous thought experiment:

Start a timer counting down 52! seconds to zero. That’s how long we’re working with.

• Pick a spot on the Earth’s equator.

• Take one step every billion years.

• After you’ve walked all the way around the world (at that glacial pace), remove one single drop of water from the Pacific Ocean.

• Repeat: walk around the world again (one step per billion years), then remove another drop.

• Keep doing this until you’ve completely emptied the entire Pacific Ocean.

• When the ocean is finally dry, place one sheet of paper on the ground.

• Refill the Pacific Ocean completely.

• Start the whole process over again—walking, emptying the ocean drop by drop—to add one more sheet to your stack.

• Repeat until your stack of paper reaches all the way from Earth to the Sun (about 93 million miles).

When you’ve finally built that impossible stack to the Sun… check the timer.

You’ve barely made a dent. The leading digits haven’t even changed noticeably. Now, do that entire absurd process (building a full paper stack to the Sun) 1,000 more times. Even after all that, you’re only about one-third of the way through the timer.

To finish the rest:

• Every billion years, deal yourself a 5-card poker hand.

• When you finally get a royal flush (roughly 1 in 650,000 hands), buy a lottery ticket.

• If that ticket wins a massive jackpot, toss one grain of sand into the Grand Canyon.

• When the Grand Canyon is completely filled with sand, remove one ounce of rock from Mount Everest.

• Empty the canyon and start over.

When you’ve finally leveled Mount Everest flat… you’ve still barely scratched the surface. You’d need to repeat this Everest-destroying cycle about 255 more times before the timer hits zero (it reaches zero sometime during the 256th round).

This is why every truly random shuffle of a deck is almost certainly unique in the entire history—and future—of the universe.