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2006-12-28 08:14:42 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Mathematics

4 answers

There is no largest finite number in the system of real and natural numbers (and in many other common number systems). Any big number (call it N) that you can think of is smaller than any of these: N+1, N+2, N+N, N^N, as well as an infinite number of other large numbers. Infinity is not an actual number. It is outside of the system of numbers, and is a shorthand (roughly speaking) for indicating when numbers are growing in size without bound (that's even what the word "infinity" means in Latin).

However, in our society, the largest number that is commonly given a name is (as far as I'm aware) the googolplex, which is 10^(10^100), which is 1 followed by 10^100 zeros (a googol number of zeros). Don't forget, though, that 1+10^(10^100) is bigger still!

Fun note: the name "googol" was invented by a child (a mathematician's nine-year-old nephew) -- see the wikipedia article cited below.

There are also numbers that are so large that we wouldn't even have the resources to describe them (known as indescribable numbers). These numbers are larger than the largest number we will ever be able to describe with our finite resources. As Jim Blowers puts it, "They are incredibly huge and obviously I can't give any examples." :)

2006-12-28 08:52:47 · answer #1 · answered by Ippus Dippus 2 · 2 0

There really isn't a biggest number because, what ever you set that number at you can always add 1, or any other number for that matter, to it, making it bigger.

2006-12-28 20:14:48 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

1,00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000

You know what?
Number never ends. It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on....

2006-12-28 16:34:48 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

∞ (infinity). There's nothing bigger.

2006-12-28 16:51:27 · answer #4 · answered by Jim Burnell 6 · 0 0

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