Graham's Number - Numberphile
Graham's Number - Numberphile on HackerTube: recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2013–2024.
Numberphile's Tony Padilla and Matt Parker discuss Graham's number, once the largest number used in a mathematical proof, and how enormous it is.
What HN commenters said
6 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
jiggawattsMay 2024Strongly recommends
If math can make you feel awe, you've got to watch the Numberphile series on very big numbers. They're constants used in proofs that are specific, well-defined integers known to be finite, but so huge that the physical universe does not have enough particles (or even Plank-scale microstates) in it to represent the number of digits these numbers have! Absolutely mind-bending stuff. Listed in increasing order: "Graham's Number" ▶ this video "How Big is Graham's Number? (feat Ron Graham)" [link] "The Enormous TREE(3)" [link] "TREE(3) (extra footage)" [link] "The Daddy of Big Numbers (Rayo's Number)" [link]
in “A Trial HIV Vaccine Triggered Elusive and Essential Antibodies in Humans” · View on HN
prezjordanFeb 2015Strongly recommends
My brain melts every time I watch this video [1] from Numberphile on Graham's number. They also had another video [2] with Ron Graham himself :) [1]: ▶ this video [2]: [link]
in “Graham's Number” · View on HN
johnsonjoMay 2019Recommends
I've seen this notation in a video [1] on Graham's number [2] by Numberphile. It's a pretty interesting video for seeing how quickly the numbers get unimaginably massive. [1]: ▶ this video [2]: [link]
in “Knuth's Up-Arrow Notation” · View on HN
RonsenshiFeb 2015Recommends
I love this video [link] by Sean Day[9] Plott describing Graham's number very well. At least I found that description very easy to follow. Numberphile [1] too has a great explanation, but I still strongly recommend watching Day[9] video because it tells a little bit of history and Sean is very expressive and good speaker so he easily engages viewer. [1] ▶ this video
in “Graham's Number” · View on HN
BalgairNov 2017Cites it
10E65 if protons do decay. 10E(10E76) if protons do not decay and virtual black-holes do not exist. At about 10E(10E(10E56)) the universe should spontaneously create a new universe, so that that is the most upper limit of time in our universe. Fairly small actually, compared to things like Graham's number and Tree(3). Turns out, infinity is really big. [link] ▶ this video
in “Ray Kurzweil thinks we could start living forever by 2029” · View on HN
ColinDabritzJul 2013Cites it
Graham's number - for a while, the largest number used in a proof: ▶ this video There are faster growing sequences as well, see: [link] both fun as well. But busy beaver consumes them all.
in “Indescribable numbers: The theorem that made me fall in love with math” · View on HN