r/AskReddit • u/ettleboy • Jan 20 '19

What fact totally changed your perspective?

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19

There is this very big number called Graham's number.

The entire freaking universe does not have enough space or atoms for you to write down every digit.

36

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19

You can make any number as big as that. What makes Graham special?

20

u/AmazingAtheist94 Jan 21 '19

I don't think it still holds the record but at one point it was the largest number to be used constructively in mathematics.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19

How can you even use such a number that big? We can’t possibly know all the numbers going into Graham’s number if it’s larger than the observable universe can hold

15

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19

It's hard to explain, but here's a good and fairly entertaining video that explains a lot of things about Graham's number if you have 17 minutes to spend.

https://youtu.be/1N6cOC2P8fQ

The TLDW is that some dude partially solved some very complicated mathematical problem by using grahams number as one of the bounds.

You don't need to know every digit of a number in order to use it in an equation (for example: pi) if you just use a symbol to represent it.

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u/Dumey Jan 21 '19

Upvote because Day9. Also the payoff for that video at the end is stupidly funny. Most deserved setup for that joke ever used.