It is clear that this is merely God's way of telling Abraham its a very large number. In this sense, "stars of the heavens" and "grains of sand that are on the seashore" are merely hyperbole.
Given that ones descendents are potentially infinite, does this not suggest that to promise a multitude like the stars of the heavens or grains of sand on the seashore is essentially to promise descendents beyond number? Surely this passage mainly serves to overwhelm Abraham with the prospects of such a promise, as well as the reader. " I shall surely multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand that are on the seashore " - (Genesis 22:17) For example, in genesis God promises Abraham: References to this mindset can be found in the bible. It was a common bit of folk wisdom at the time of Archimedes that the grains of sand over all the earth were "infinite" by which it was meant that the multitude was beyond "counting". If that was not already enough, Archimedes was also the large number champion of his day, inventing an ingenious number system that allowed him to transcend the known universe in scale and majesty. If you need proof of just how significant this discovery was to Archimedes himself, consider that he requested that his tomb be surmounted by a sphere inscribed in a cylinder. All that being said perhaps his greatest discovery in mathematics, advocated as such by Archimedes himself, was that the volume of a sphere was 2/3 the volume of its circumscribing cylinder. These were methods that would later form the foundation of Calculus, being applied more than a thousand years before its time! Archimedes was also able to derive many of the formulae for the surface areas and volumes of common 3-dimensional shapes, and his methods led to improved approximations of pi. In mathematics Archimedes was able to compute the area under parabolic curves using a summation of an infinite series. He developed the foundations of hydrostatics, and discovered the principle of the lever. Besides this he also made advances in Physics. He purportedly designed machines capable of lifting ships out of the water and another that could set them ablaze using mirrors! If that isn't a testament to his ingenuity and genius I don't know what is. However during the time that he was alive he was probably best known for his work in physics, especially for its military applications. Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 B.C.) is often regarded as the greatest mathematician of antiquity.
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