Graham's Number - Numberphile
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as the mind-melting intro to unimaginably large numbers.
What it is
Numberphile's Tony Padilla and Matt Parker discuss Graham's number, once the largest number used in a mathematical proof, and how enormous it is.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2013 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec prezjordan · 2015-02 · on “Graham's Number”
My brain melts every time I watch this video [1] from Numberphile on Graham's number. They also had another video [2] with Ron Graham himself :) [1]: [this video] [2]: [LINK]
Strong rec jiggawatts · 2024-05 · on “A Trial HIV Vaccine Triggered Elusive and Essential Antibodies in Humans”
If math can make you feel awe, you've got to watch the Numberphile series on very big numbers. They're constants used in proofs that are specific, well-defined integers known to be finite, but so huge that the physical universe does not have enough particles (or even Plank-scale microstates) in it to represent the number of digits these numbers have! Absolutely mind-bending stuff. Listed in increasing order: "Graham's Number" [this video] "How Big is Graham's Number? (feat Ron Graham)" [LINK] "The Enormous TREE(3)" [LINK] "TREE(3) (extra footage)" [LINK] "The Daddy of Big Numbers (Rayo's Number)" [LINK]
Recommends Ronsenshi · 2015-02 · on “Graham's Number”
I love this video [LINK] by Sean Day[9] Plott describing Graham's number very well. At least I found that description very easy to follow. Numberphile [1] too has a great explanation, but I still strongly recommend watching Day[9] video because it tells a little bit of history and Sean is very expressive and good speaker so he easily engages viewer. [1] [this video]
Recommends johnsonjo · 2019-05 · on “Knuth's Up-Arrow Notation”
I've seen this notation in a video [1] on Graham's number [2] by Numberphile. It's a pretty interesting video for seeing how quickly the numbers get unimaginably massive. [1]: [this video] [2]: [LINK]
Cites ColinDabritz · 2013-07 · on “Indescribable numbers: The theorem that made me fall in love with math”
Graham's number - for a while, the largest number used in a proof: [this video] There are faster growing sequences as well, see: [LINK] both fun as well. But busy beaver consumes them all.
Cites Balgair · 2017-11 · on “Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029”
10E65 if protons do decay. 10E(10E76) if protons do not decay and virtual black-holes do not exist. At about 10E(10E(10E56)) the universe should spontaneously create a new universe, so that that is the most upper limit of time in our universe. Fairly small actually, compared to things like Graham's number and Tree(3). Turns out, infinity is really big. [LINK] [this video]