Here I will describe :
* the complexity the protein folding problem. 10^300 folding possibilities for the the average protein based upon certain assumptions
* I will compare the other large problems to protein folding and some discussion about comprehending large numbers

Complexity of Protein Folding

the scale of the protein folding problem was fairly well defined and understood in 1969. Levinthal explained it.

Proteins are macromolecules which possess several unique properties. They are very large (containing 2,000 or more atoms) and complex. Their structures show no obvious regularity but a very subtle regularity is apparent upon close examination. We know from the fact that proteins may be crystallized and further from x-ray crystallography that each atom occupies a unique place in the relative 3-dimensional space of the molecule. If we consider a protein containing 2,000 atoms with no structural restrictions, such a macromolecule would possess 6,000 degrees of freedom. We know, however, from x-ray studies and other techniques as well, that there are indeed certain structural restrictions in a polypeptide structure. For example, if we schematically indicate a polypeptide chain as in Figure 1, we find that the 6 atoms in each unit indicated by the dotted lines lie in a common plane.