Really really big numbers
I was doing a little web-surfing the other day and I came across some very large numbers, like Graham’s Number, Moser’s Number and Skewes’ Number. Now they [ominous, no?] say that these numbers are greater than the number of observable particles in the universe. Suppose that you associated a numbering order to the number of observable particles in the universe. For example, the electron in this particular atom of carbon in my finger is 1; another electron in the same atom is 1,524,151,156,894,126. The upper estimate as to the number of particles in the visible universe is 10 to the 81st power, or ten with 81 zeros after it. The number of combinations is signified by the factorial (!): for example, 3!=6, 6!=120 and so forth. 70!, as any scientific calculator will show you, is more than 10 to the 100th power. So could we have a Beitia’s number? The number of possible combinations of the number of visible particles in the universe? 10 to the 81st power factorial? I like it, which means someone has probably already thought of it…
Aside: it is almost enough to make one a stop counting…
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