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ZACHS MARCH 12, 2012
One of the first questions that kids often ask is What is the
biggest number? Thisquestion is an important step in transitioning
to a world of abstract concepts. Theanswer is of course that
numbers are generally considered endless, but there gets tobe a
point were numbers become so big that there really is no point in
having them,they have no real importance outside of the fact that
yes technically they do exist. Tomake a list like this I could
simply write down a massive number for the first number,and then
write +1, +2, +3 and so on for the rest of the list. Instead I
chose to take out 10numbers that do have some effect on the world
and place them in ascending order,giving a brief explanation as to
what they are and how they have some relevance onthe world, albeit
very small relevance, especially when compared to the size of
thenumber itself.
10 10^80
TECHNOLOGY
10 Enormous Numbers
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Ten to the eightieth power a 1 with 80 zeros after it is quite
massive but somewhattangible at least from a relatively concrete
point of view. This is the estimated numberof fundamental particles
in the known universe, and with fundamental particles werenot
talking about microscopic particles, were talking about much
smaller things likeQuarks and Leptons subatomic particles. The name
for this number in U.S. andModern British is One Hundred
Quinquavigintillion I would write out phonetically howto pronounce
that but I dont have a clue. The concept of the amount of such
smallthings and how many of them make up the entire universe may
seem overwhelming,but it is the smallest and easiest to understand
of the numbers on this list.
9 One Googol
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The word googol, with a slightly different spelling, has become
a frequently used verbin modern times, thanks to a highly popular
search engine. The number has aninteresting history which you can
find by simply googling it. The term was coined byMilton Sirotta in
1938 when he was 9 years old. Although this is a relatively
abstractnumber, only existing for the fact that it technically
exists, but it does come upoccasionally in other uses.
Mental Calculator Alexis Lemaire set a world record for
calculating the 13th root of a100 digit number, the 13th root of
8,192 is 2, or 2 times itself thirteen times, 100 digitnumbers are
googols, one of the numbers that Lemaire had calculated would
haveread (3 googol, 893 Duotrigintillion, ext, ext.) Another use is
from about 1 to 1.5 googolyears after the big bang, the most
massive black holes will have exploded. These willbe the last
recognizable structure of our universe to disintegrate, and once it
does theuniverse will enter its 5th and final era known as the Dark
Era the end of theuniverse based on certain scientific models.
8 8.5 x 10^185
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A Plank length is extremely small, approximately 1.616199 x
10-35 meters, or in longform 0.00000000000000000000000000000616199
meters. There are about a googol ofthem in a 1 inch cube. Plank
length and Plank volumes are important in quantumphysics branches
like string theory evidently sizes this small allow the
extradimensions to be detected, at least in some theories. How do
all these small thingsapply to the third smallest number of this
list? There are approximately 8.5 x 10^185plank volumes in the
universe. This number is both massive and its practical
purposerelatively non-existent, however it is still simple compared
to the rest of the numberson this list.
7 2^43,112,609 1
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The third largest number on this list, the number of all the
plank volumes in theuniverse, consists of 185 digits. This number
here consists of almost 13 million digits.The significance of this
number is that it is currently the largest known prime number.It
was discovered in August of 2008 by the Great Internet Messene
Prime Search(GIMPS). From here on the numbers become much more
difficult to render.
6 Googolplex
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A lot of people have heard this word as well, fans of the Back
to the Future movies mayremember Dr. Emit L. Brown muttering the
line shes one in a million, one in a billion,one in a googolplex.
But what is a googolplex? Remember how long a googol is? A onewith
a hundred zeros after it, a googolplex is a 1 with a googol zeros
after it. How big isthis number? If the entire universe was filled
with paper and all that those papers hadwritten on them were zeros
at a size 10 font, it would only be about half the zerosrequired to
write out this number in the long form. Even writing the number
inscientific notation is not very practical, for a number this
large it requires yet anothertype of notation, something called a
power tower. For example our first number 10^80is the first part of
a power tower, as the power tower grows the next number would
beplaced as a superscript above and to the right of the 80. These
are not always possibleto write in digital text, so we have to use
yet another short hand, the same methodused on a graphing
calculator, the symbol ^. So item 10 on this list can be renderedas
so 10^80, or ten to the eightieth. Now with this form of notation
we can more easilywrite out the googolplex, which is 10^10^100, or
ten to the tenth to the one hundredth.We will also be using these
towers for the next few numbers so I hope youre okay
withconceptualizing them.
5 Skewes numbers
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Skewes Number is the upper bounds to the math problem that: (x)
> Li(x), a simplelooking enough equation, however Li is a much
more complicated equation in its ownright. Essentially Skewes
number proves that a number x exists that violates thisrule,
assuming that Reimanns hypothesis is true then that number x is
less than10^10^10^36, (most numbers are) the first of Skewes
Numbers, much bigger than agoogolplex, noted because of the extra
tower. There is also an even large Skewenumber, without assuming
Reimanns hypothesis, x is less then 10^10^10^963.
4 Poincare Recurrence Time
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This is very complicated stuff, but the core concept is
relatively simple: given enoughtime, anything is possible Poincare
recurrence time is the amount of time that itwould take for the
entire universe to return to a state that is relatively the same as
towhat it is today, caused by random quantum fluctuations, or in
more simplified terms,History will repeat itself. The high estimate
of how long this will take is10^10^10^10^10^1.1 years.
3 Grahams Number
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This number is massive in the 1980s it was listed in the
Guinness book of worldrecords as the most massive finite number
ever used in a serious mathematical proof.It was created Ron
Graham, as the upper bounds to a problem in Ramsey Theoryinvolving
multicolored hyper cubes. The number is so big even a power tower
would betoo cumbersome to represent the number. The only way to
easily represent thenumber is to use Knuths Up-Arrow Notation and
its own equation. Lets go throughthis piece by piece.
First Knuths Up-Arrow Notation is a method of writing very large
numbers, it would bemuch too complicated to explain exactly how the
arrows work here, but you canvisualize it this way. 33 translates
to 33 or 27, 33 translates to 3^3^3 or7,625,597,484,987. Now if you
were to add another arrow to the number 33, thenthe power tower
would be over 7.5 trillion levels. This alone is much much bigger
thanthe Poincare Recurrence time, and you can add an infinite
amount of arrows and eacharrow makes the number that much more
powerful.
The representation of Grahams number is: G=f64(4), where
f(n)=3^n3. The best way tolook at this is in layers. The first
layer is 33, which is already a number too massiveto represent in
most other forms. The next layer has that many arrows between
3s.Then take that answer and put that many arrows into the next
layer between 3s, andthis goes on for 64 layers. If youre
interested the last ten digits of Grahams Numberare 2464195387, no
one, not even Graham himself knows what the first digit is.
Infinity
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2Most people know of this number and it is used in hyperbole all
the time kind of likethe number one zillion but its more
complicated then most people realize, and if youthought the numbers
that came before this one were strange, this one is evenstranger,
and a controversial number too. According to the rules of infinity,
there are aninfinite number of odd numbers and even numbers in
infinity even though there canonly be half as many odd numbers as
total numbers. Infinity plus one equals infinity,infinity minus one
equals infinity, infinity plus infinity equals infinity, infinity
divided inhalf is still infinity, but infinity minus infinity is
not exactly understood, infinity dividedby infinity would probably
be 1.
Scientists estimate 1080 subatomic particles in our known
universe, but that is theknown universe, or the observable
universe. A lot of scientists, however, believe thatthe universe is
infinite, or if they dont believe this is the case they still
accept it as apossibility. If this is the case then by mathematics
alone there must be another Earthout there where every atom happens
to be in the exact same location in relation toevery other atom on
Earth as it is in our own. The chances of two carbon copy Earthsare
extremely small, however in an infinite universe it not only can
occur but it has tooccur, and not only that, there has to be an
infinite amount of carbon copy Earths outthere if the universe does
in fact go one forever.
Not all people believe in infinity however, Israeli Mathematics
Professor DoronZeilberger, stated that he feels numbers do not go
on forever and there is a number solarge that when you add 1 to it
you will go back to zero, however this number is muchhigher then
anything humans can comprehend, and that number may never be
foundor proven, this belief is the main pillar in a mathematical
philosophy known asUltrafinitism.
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1 +1 Infinity + 1
Sorry, had to do it.
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280 Comments Listverse Login
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Annonymus 2 years agoInfinity is not a number...
31
Reply
Exiled Phoenix a year ago> Annonymusif there are an infinite
amount of numbers... then...?
Reply
JoeyP a year ago> Exiled PhoenixBut infinity is not a
specific number. One can only say "approachinginfinity" because no
matter what number you have; add one and it isbigger.
7
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Exiled Phoenix a year ago> JoeyPLegitimate point.
2
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Ruz 8 months ago> JoeyPNice one!
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Ian a year ago> JoeyPActually Graham's number in some ways
may be equal toinfinity and a number I like to call googolplexian
(a number with agoogolplex zeros) is basically equal to infinity
simply becausethey can never be reached. They are in a way all
equal. If youdivided a second in relation to a planck and went on
"forever"you simply could not reach any of the 3 no matter how long
youwent. Now hypothetically speaking if you went on for
Graham'snumber planck seconds then sure you have reached it.
Thething is that's just not possible to go on that long (time
andspace would probably stop existing by then) or you would
justkeep going and going and you would never get that far
becauseyou have more to go. It's just that BIG. Also if you tried
toimagine Graham's number in your mind and didn't die from it
andwent on long enough your head would literally collapse into
ablack hole and this is not a joke there is math behind it just
lookit up. It's like the debt ceiling only with number's. It is so
biggoing any bigger just doesn't matter because that number in
thefirst place cant be reached by anything.
Reply
Lewis Jones 10 months ago> IanHowever googolplexian is not
equal to Grahams number. Andthey aren't infinity or infinite
numbers. Because if you add 1 onto googolplexian, its bigger. And
so on. So although it may notbe possible to reach to those numbers,
they are still there
2
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ruz 8 months ago> IanI think this is not right - you can
write googolplex andgoogolplexplex(what you call 'googolplexian') -
you just needlots of time!
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Mike 3 months ago> ruzIf you mean in long form then uh no,
unless you find anotheruniverse to do it in. You see, our current
universe will have longdescended into darkness before you'd have
gotten the merestspeck of those numbers written out.
Lewis Jones 9 months ago> Exiled Phoenix
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An infinite amount of numbers means the amount of numbers
isunlimited/numbers go on forever
Reply
Ryanlauph 2 years agoThis article is so badly written it's
unreadable.You need an editor.
14
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Michael Jackson a year agoYep .. Close to how many records I
sold
7
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riosrock12 2 years agothis is
zillion:100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000,00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001
7
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Ruz 8 months ago> riosrock12I disagree with you. A zillion is
not a number!
2
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Mike 2 years agoYou *seriously* underestimated the amount of
space to write down a Googolplex. Ifyou assume 10^80 elementary
particles in the observable universe and wrote a zeroon each
particle, you'd need another 10^20 (100 quintillion to be precise)
universeseach the size of of our observable universe to write the
number down in long form.Remember, each time the exponent number
increases by 1 (i.e. 10^80 to 10^81) itmultiples the whole number
by a factor of 10. Just saying..
7
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Stefan 3 years agoLoved the list!Only infinity is not a
number.Infinity+1= UndefinedInfinity-Infinity=Undefined One has to
use limits to define these "equations"
Lim n+1 = Infinityn->Inf.
Just for those who are interested 7
another annonymus a year ago> Stefaninfinity - infinity =
0infinity / infinity = 1infinity * infinity = infinityinfinity +
infinity = infinity
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infinity + infinity = infinityinfinity ^ infinity = infinity20 /
0 = 2020^0 = 20
just my opinion on famous maths problem like zero and
infinity
Reply
Anon 9 months ago> another annonymusYou can't use operations
like addition and multiplication with infinitybecause infinity is
not a number; it is a concept. You also can't divideby zero because
there is no number you can multiply 0 by to get 20. Goahead and try
it. Also, 20^0 is clearly not 0, it is 1. Any number, except0, to
the power of 0 is 1.
3
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DMFW 6 months ago> AnonAnd what's a number if not a concept?
Just because infinitydoesn't behave like other numbers doesn't make
it "not anumber". Zero doesn't behave like other numbers. Neither
doesthe square root of minus 1 or pi (in different senses of
course). Ifyou can do maths with it, it's a number. You can do
maths withinfinity (of a kind). Cantor showed the way...
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rusty shackleford a month ago> DMFWInfinity is not a number.
See my post above.
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Ruz 8 months ago> AnonTrue... but it is also a number.
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Pangloss a year ago> StefanInfinity +1 is defined, so is
1+infinity. You don't need limits to discuss infinity.There is an
entire calculus of infinte numbers. That of course depends onwhich
infinity you are talking about. It is obvious to see that there
must be aninfinite number of infinite numbers.
Reply
Utah Larry 3 years agoThere are three kinds of people, those who
understand math and those who don't. AndI'm one of 'em.
6
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Infinitely anonymous 2 years agoinfinity is what you call an
unending string of numbers
5
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riosrock12 2 years agoshould be top 12
2
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riosrock12 2 years agoalso wut about centillion?
2
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riosrock12 2 years agozomg it should be top 11! the 5th should
be mourers number 4th zillion 3rd grahamsnumber 2nd infinity 1st +1
Infinity + 1
2
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Lewis Jones 10 months ago> riosrock12But infinite is not a
number. See my other posts and understand why.
1
Reply
Johnny 2 years agoYES IT IS INFINITY IZ A NUMBA
3
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Lewis Jones 10 months ago> JohnnyBut it is not. Is there any
way of using 'infinity' in numerical forms? It is notpossible to
use infinity in a mathematics equation as infinity is a word
todescribe something thats never ending. If a plank of wood went on
for infinitymiles then it would go on forever. It will go on for so
many miles there isn't anumber for the amount of miles because
there is no amount of miles. It goes onforever. If your playing
mario and you have infinite lives that means you haveunlimited
because lives would be there no matter what.
2
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dmfw 6 months ago> Lewis JonesThere are all sorts of subtle
ways of using transfinite numbers whichCantor explored for the
first time. It is possible to do maths with theseconcepts and
whilst infinity (strictly there are many infinities, but formost
purposes the first one will do) is not a normal number it is still
anumber of a kind to which extensions of arithmetic apply...
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Lewis Jones 9 months ago> JohnnyYou've got to be kidding
me...
rusty shacklefordf a month agoYes, infinity is not a number. A
number is concrete, specific. You also have differenttypes of
infinity, i.e. countably infinite and uncountably infinite. The set
of naturalnumbers is countably infinite. However, the set of
numbers in the interval (0,1) is
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numbers is countably infinite. However, the set of numbers in
the interval (0,1) isuncountably infinite.
1
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Ruz 8 months agogoogolplex = 10^googolgoogolplexplex =
10^googolplexgoogolplexplexplex = 10^googolplexplex
etc... 1
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Lewis Jones 10 months agoInfinite is not a number. It is used as
a word similar to forever. There are an infiniteamount of numbers
so that also means numbers go on forever. That doesnt makeinfinite
a number. If something moves for an infinite amount of time it
means it will movefor ever. And that doesn't mean it will move for
infinite hours or any other measure oftime because infinite isn't a
number. Infinite could just mean forever in someperspective but it
isn't just that I know. But infinite is not a number and can't be
used ina complete and legit mathematics equation.
1
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Ruz 8 months ago> Lewis JonesWhy not? Why? Whats a number?
Explain what is a number? Here:A finite number: Used to count
,add,measure,multiplication and more...A infinite number -
infinity!!!!*Well infinity is used in limits,you need to learn.
Reply
Lewis Jones 8 months ago> RuzImagine there is infinity
particles in the world. You can write 1 numberon each particle.
Specify the amount of particles you would need towrite down
infinity in numerical form. (you can't say infinity)
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MrCake000 a year ago(Infinite+1)-(Infinite+1)
=(Infinite)-(Infinite)
= 0
As you see infinite is not a number and subrtacting two infinite
is just as likesubtracting A-A and it is equal to nothing or Zero
but as many peapole says infinite is anumber think you are
subtracting 1-1 it will give zero so the answer is Zero
SOSIMPLE
And whiy infinite minus infinite is 1 how the hack is that
possible this would be just like1-1=1 it doesn't make sense lol
1
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jefjkjsdkfj 2 years agoyou're such a dumb-ass infinity plus one
is still infinity and 0 and infinity are concepts.
1
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careytommy 3 years ago#3 was totally crazy!
1
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Tony 3 years agoNumber ten, shouldn't that be to the power of
minus 80, if it is a sub atomic particle?
1
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krleblok94 3 years agoThe 1st on this list should be the number
that is so large, that when you power zero tothat number, it gives
a positive number.
1
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Lewis Jones 9 months ago> krleblok94Every positive number to
the power of zero gives an answer of one. Do someresearch and come
back.
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Ruz 8 months ago> Lewis JonesTrue.
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jack54 a year ago> krleblok94That would be every positive
number... 1^0=1
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Ed 19 days agoThe article states, "in an infinite universe it
not only can occur but it has to occur..."However, one can have an
infinite number of whole numbers without including thenumbers 1 to
a googolplex (a number larger than the number of atoms in the
knownuniverse). After subtracting those numbers or starting the set
at googolplex + 1, aninfinite number of whole numbers still
remains, so infinity is not necessarily allinclusive. A particular
case does not have to occur.
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rust a month agoWhat the hell is "ext, ext"? More than that, the
author should go back to grade school(that he probably didn't
finish) and learn basic GRAMMAR. I can't bear to readsupposedly
scientific articles written by people who don't know the difference
between"its" and "it's". By the way, not "33 or 27", but "3^3 or
27".
Check your work!
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ALSO ON LISTVERSE
Reply
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Jamie Maddux 3 months agoHow many digets are in the legendary
Graham's number
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horst 3 months agowhat about
Reply
Paul Gardner 6 months agoAs others have said, Infinity is not a
number. Period. Also, you forgot TREE(3) whichis FAR larger than
Graham's number.
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