Can any space geeks chime in on this one?
Does this mean the emission of light from the sun at a single point in time x 10^15? My brain pretty much divides by zero even trying to comprehend such a large number and I'm just trying to grasp the relationship of the emitted light to our sun.
I have studied blazars fairly extensively in the past and you are right that the brain cant really fathom the 'real world' appearance of these things. I resort to just thinking in terms of number of photons and avoid thinking about the rest, as it tends to result in a lot of existential dread and drinking.
A trillion is a rather large number. Some quick maths says that 1,000 trillion cm^2 is 100,000 km^2, or a region roughly 315 km on a side (195 miles), or a circle with a radius of about 126 km (77 mi).
Alternatively, if you consider sunlight falling on a patch of ground for one second, the amount reaching it over 1 trillion seconds would take about 32,000 years.
So think in terms of a very large magnifying glass (I'd suggest considering a Fresnel lens for economy's sake), or a very long-term accumulator.
I've tried using this line in the wrong company that wasn't math oriented, and it fell flat.
It's also amusing your use of this phrase, as in a lot of the astronomy circles I've seen/read, there's a joke that black holes are where god divided by zero. So it felt very apropos to me in this context too.