A giant freaking number

wormguy · Post by **wormguy** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:04 pm

Have any of you read this comic?

I have just begun to realize what an amazingly huge number that calling the Ackermann function with Graham's number as the arguments would be.

I'm trying to write a program that would calculate that number. I think it may make my processor explode.

EDIT: When I try to calculate Graham's number, I get an overflow error. Eh, should have seen that coming.

leDoOd · Post by **leDoOd** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:39 pm

Bleh blargh bloo? *smashes things with his cro-magnon club*

Silb · Post by **Silb** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:48 pm

The comic is slightly inaccurate in that physicists and computer scientists would probably be horrified, but not mathematicians (who would just go 'pffffffft, finite number, boring').*

*Right as I'm typing this, I'm actually taking a break from an assignement involving a number k so high that it is equal to the exponential tower 2 power 2 power 2 etc of its own height k (okay, it's an infinite number).

And I'm not enjoying it. It's goddamn 3'30 AM, the only guy who could split the job is sick, and the night is going to be looooong.

Usagi · Post by **Usagi** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:46 am