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A giant freaking number

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:04 pm
by wormguy
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.

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:39 pm
by leDoOd
Bleh blargh bloo? *smashes things with his cro-magnon club*

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:48 pm
by Silb
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.

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 1:46 am
by Usagi
Image