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## What's the largest number you can come up with?

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### #1sooner123  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 09:06 AM

Write/describe the largest finite number you possibly can in one post. You may use any amount of functions, numbers, or operations you know of or can come up with. As long as your number is unambiguously expressed, it counts. Please do not use any references (google/books/calculators/etc.) Just your noggin' if you please! Of course you can work stuff out on a piece of paper if you need, but I'd prefer to see what people come up with without consulting any references outside their brain.

This is an interesting experiment I recently did with one of my classes and I'd love to see what people come up with here.

After this goes on for awhile, I'll post some of the more clever answers my students gave.

### #2rip-off  Moderators

Posted 28 July 2011 - 09:18 AM


1 + ∑

∀ page : pages(http://www.gamedev.net/topic/607302-whats-the-largest-number-you-can-come-up-with)

∀ post : posts(page) | post ≠ this

eval(equation(post))



### #3SiCrane  Moderators

Posted 28 July 2011 - 09:20 AM

Well there's always calling the Ackermann function with Graham's number.

### #4Ezbez  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 09:22 AM

rip-off: I think you will enjoy the equation in this post:

-1 times the Ackermann function of Graham's number.

(In other words, SiCrane is winning).

### #5ChurchSkiz  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 09:31 AM

Does a googol count as unambiguous?

I would say googolplex^ googolplex

### #6The_Neverending_Loop  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 09:33 AM

42

### #7rip-off  Moderators

Posted 28 July 2011 - 10:12 AM

-1 times the Ackermann function of Graham's number.

### #8SiCrane  Moderators

Posted 28 July 2011 - 10:27 AM

1 + ∑
∀ page : pages(http://www.gamedev.net/topic/607302-whats-the-largest-number-you-can-come-up-with)
∀ post : posts(page) | post ≠ this
eval(equation(post))


Wouldn't you also be disqualified if someone quoted this formula since it would no longer be a finite number?

### #9sooner123  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 10:30 AM

1 + ∑
∀ page : pages(http://www.gamedev.net/topic/607302-whats-the-largest-number-you-can-come-up-with)
∀ post : posts(page) | post ≠ this
eval(equation(post))


Wouldn't you also be disqualified if someone quoted this formula since it would no longer be a finite number?

Could pass the depth of recursion as an argument and terminate with a finite number at a certain depth.

But I was hoping for posts that didn't reference other posts

### #10RivieraKid  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 10:45 AM

a bazzilion gillion zillion

### #11Nypyren  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 11:02 AM

• Get maximum storage space allowed for one forum post, or remaining hard drive space on the forum server, whichever is smaller.
• Determine ZLIB block representing the most possible 0xFF bytes in a row.
• Repeat this ZLIB block until there is no more space available.
NOTE: The uncompressed data is to be interpreted in unsigned form.

### #12/ GoofProg.F   Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 11:03 AM

Write/describe the largest finite number you possibly can in one post. You may use any amount of functions, numbers, or operations you know of or can come up with. As long as your number is unambiguously expressed, it counts. Please do not use any references (google/books/calculators/etc.) Just your noggin' if you please! Of course you can work stuff out on a piece of paper if you need, but I'd prefer to see what people come up with without consulting any references outside their brain.

This is an interesting experiment I recently did with one of my classes and I'd love to see what people come up with here.

After this goes on for awhile, I'll post some of the more clever answers my students gave.

Easy. I would use three strings with various operations and algorithm to display it. Pretty easy, but I will not release my new top secret patented copyrighted trademark. As a matter of fact I would recommend using that for games because using 32 bit floating point values just for calculations and displaying seems a bit too much now unless someone needs to cram more than a million floating point values in their test application

cheers!
General Studies A.S - College of Southern Nevada 2003 GPA 2.3

### #13sooner123  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 11:57 AM

• Get maximum storage space allowed for one forum post, or remaining hard drive space on the forum server, whichever is smaller.
• Determine ZLIB block representing the most possible 0xFF bytes in a row.
• Repeat this ZLIB block until there is no more space available.
NOTE: The uncompressed data is to be interpreted in unsigned form.

Your post started out so promising. Then you didn't know about the busy beaver and I was disappointed.

### #14BeanDog  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 12:03 PM

The number of times I have played StarCraft.

### #15Nypyren  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 12:20 PM

• Get maximum storage space allowed for one forum post, or remaining hard drive space on the forum server, whichever is smaller.
• Determine ZLIB block representing the most possible 0xFF bytes in a row.
• Repeat this ZLIB block until there is no more space available.
NOTE: The uncompressed data is to be interpreted in unsigned form.

Your post started out so promising. Then you didn't know about the busy beaver and I was disappointed.

Yeah, I'm definitely more implementation-oriented than theory-oriented and don't have the slightest clue what a busy beaver is. It was dangerous for me to post in a theory-oriented thread, wasn't it?

### #16Antheus  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 01:29 PM

Aleph.

Plus one.

### #17Luckless  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 01:38 PM

The largest valid response in this thread, +1.
If your signature on a web forum takes up more space than your average post, then you are doing things wrong.

### #18sooner123  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 01:38 PM

Aleph.

Plus one.

Which Aleph? Either way, it's infinite.

### #19sooner123  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 01:40 PM

The largest valid response in this thread, +1.

Unless you're acknowledging that your response will not be valid. Because if yours is valid, then you will have to add 1 ad infinitum.

### #20KanonBaum  Members

Posted 28 July 2011 - 01:48 PM

12.
I'm that imaginary number in the parabola of life.

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