Countless different numbers surround us every day. Surely many people have asked at least once what number is considered the largest. You can simply tell a child that this is a million, but adults are well aware that other numbers follow a million. For example, it is only necessary to add one to the number every time, and it will become more and more - this happens ad infinitum. But if you parse the numbers that have names, then you can find out what is called the most big number in the world.
The emergence of the names of numbers: what methods are used?
Today there are 2 systems according to which numbers are given names - American and English. The first is fairly simple, while the second is the most common around the world. American allows you to give names to large numbers like this: first, the ordinal in Latin is indicated, and then the suffix "illion" is added (the exception here is a million, meaning a thousand). This system is used by the Americans, French, Canadians, and it is also used in our country.
English is widely used in England and Spain. According to it, the numbers are named as follows: the numeral in Latin is "plus" with the suffix "illion", and the next (a thousand times larger) number is "plus" "illiard". For example, first comes a trillion, followed by a trillion, followed by a quadrillion, and so on.
So, the same number in different systems can mean different things, for example, the American billion in the English system is called a billion.
Off-system numbers
In addition to numbers that are written according to known systems (above), there are also non-systemic ones. They have their own names, which do not include Latin prefixes.
You can start considering them with a number called a myriad. It is defined as one hundred hundreds (10000). But for its intended purpose, this word is not used, but is used as an indication of an innumerable number. Even Dahl's dictionary will kindly provide a definition of such a number.
The next after the myriad is googol, denoting 10 to the power of 100. This name was first used in 1938 - by a mathematician from America E. Kasner, who noted that this name was invented by his nephew.
Google (search engine) got its name in honor of googol. Then 1-tsa with a googol of zeros (1010100) is a googolplex - Kasner also invented this name.
Even larger in comparison with the googolplex is the Skuse number (e to the e to the e79 power), proposed by Skuse in the proof of the Rimmann conjecture on primes (1933). There is one more Skuse number, but it is applied when the Rimmann hypothesis is not valid. It is rather difficult to say which of them is more, especially when it comes to large degrees. However, this number, despite its "enormity", cannot be considered the most-most of all those that have their own names.
And the leader among the most large numbers in the world is the Graham number (G64). It was he who was used for the first time to carry out proofs in the field of mathematical science (1977).
When it comes to such a number, you need to know that you cannot do without a special 64-level system created by Knut - the reason for this is the connection of the number G with bichromatic hypercubes. The whip invented a superdegree, and in order to make it convenient to take her notes, he suggested using the up arrows. So we learned the name of the largest number in the world. It is worth noting that this G number got on the pages of the famous Book of Records.
The question "What is the largest number in the world?" Is, to say the least, incorrect. There are both different systems of numbers - decimal, binary and hexadecimal, and various categories of numbers - semi-simple and simple, and the latter are divided into legal and illegal. In addition, there are the Skewes "number", Steinhouse and other mathematicians who, either jokingly or seriously, invent and publish such exotics as "megiston" or "moser" to the public.
What is the largest number in the world in decimal system
Of the decimal system, most "non-mathematicians" are well aware of the million, billion and trillion. Moreover, if Russians associate a million with a dollar bribe that can be carried away in a suitcase, then where to shove a billion (not to mention a trillion) North American banknotes - the majority do not have enough imagination. However, in the theory of large numbers, there are concepts such as quadrillion (ten to the fifteenth power - 1015), sextillion (1021) and octillion (1027).
In the English decimal system, the most widely used decimal system in the world, the decimal is considered the maximum number - 1033.
In 1938, in connection with the development of applied mathematics and the expansion of the micro- and macrocosm, a professor at Columbia University (USA), Edward Kasner, published on the pages of the journal "Scripta Mathematica" the proposal of his nine-year-old nephew to use the decimal system of a large number of "googol" ("googol") - representing ten to the hundredth power (10100), which on paper is expressed as one with one hundred zeros. However, they did not stop there and after a few years proposed to introduce into circulation a new largest number in the world - "googolplex", which is ten, raised to the tenth power and once again raised to the hundredth power - (1010) 100, expressed by a unit to which a googol of zeros is assigned to the right. However, for the majority of even professional mathematicians, both "googol" and "googolplex" are of purely speculative interest, and they can hardly be applied to anything in everyday practice.
Exotic numbers
What is the largest number in the world among prime numbers - those that can only be divisible by themselves and by one. One of the first to fix the largest prime number, 2,147,483,647, was the great mathematician Leonard Euler. As of January 2016, this number is recognized as an expression calculated as 274 207 281 - 1.
Countless different numbers surround us every day. Surely many people have asked at least once what number is considered the largest. You can simply tell a child that this is a million, but adults are well aware that other numbers follow a million. For example, it is only necessary to add one to the number every time, and it will become more and more - this happens ad infinitum. But if you take apart the numbers that have names, you can find out what the largest number in the world is called.
The emergence of the names of numbers: what methods are used?
Today there are 2 systems according to which numbers are given names - American and English. The first is fairly simple, while the second is the most common around the world. American allows you to give names to large numbers like this: first, the ordinal in Latin is indicated, and then the suffix "illion" is added (the exception here is a million, meaning a thousand). This system is used by the Americans, French, Canadians, and it is also used in our country.
English is widely used in England and Spain. According to it, the numbers are named as follows: the numeral in Latin is "plus" with the suffix "illion", and the next (a thousand times larger) number is "plus" "illiard". For example, first comes a trillion, followed by a trillion, followed by a quadrillion, and so on.
So, the same number in different systems can mean different things, for example, the American billion in the English system is called a billion.
Off-system numbers
In addition to numbers that are written according to known systems (above), there are also non-systemic ones. They have their own names, which do not include Latin prefixes.
You can start considering them with a number called a myriad. It is defined as one hundred hundreds (10000). But for its intended purpose, this word is not used, but is used as an indication of an innumerable number. Even Dahl's dictionary will kindly provide a definition of such a number.
The next after the myriad is googol, denoting 10 to the power of 100. This name was first used in 1938 - by a mathematician from America E. Kasner, who noted that this name was invented by his nephew.
Google (search engine) got its name in honor of googol. Then 1-tsa with a googol of zeros (1010100) is a googolplex - Kasner also invented this name.
Even larger in comparison with the googolplex is the Skuse number (e to the e to the e79 power), proposed by Skuse in the proof of the Rimmann conjecture on primes (1933). There is one more Skuse number, but it is applied when the Rimmann hypothesis is not valid. It is rather difficult to say which of them is more, especially when it comes to large degrees. However, this number, despite its "enormity", cannot be considered the most-most of all those that have their own names.
And the leader among the largest numbers in the world is the Graham number (G64). It was he who was used for the first time to carry out proofs in the field of mathematical science (1977).
When it comes to such a number, you need to know that you cannot do without a special 64-level system created by Knut - the reason for this is the connection of the number G with bichromatic hypercubes. The whip invented a superdegree, and in order to make it convenient to take her notes, he suggested using the up arrows. So we learned the name of the largest number in the world. It is worth noting that this G number got on the pages of the famous Book of Records.
The world of science is simply amazing with its knowledge. However, even the most brilliant person in the world will not be able to comprehend them all. But you need to strive for this. That is why in this article I want to figure out what it is, the largest number.
About systems
First of all, it must be said that there are two number naming systems in the world: American and English. Depending on this, the same number can be called differently, although they have the same meaning. And at the very beginning, you need to deal with precisely these nuances in order to avoid uncertainty and confusion.
American system
It will be interesting that this system is used not only in America and Canada, but also in Russia. In addition, it also has its own scientific name: the short-scale naming system for numbers. What are large numbers called in this system? So, the secret is pretty simple. At the very beginning, there will be a Latin ordinal number, after which the well-known suffix "-million" will simply be added. The following fact will be interesting: in translation from Latin the number "million" can be translated as "thousand". The following numbers belong to the American system: a trillion is 10 12, a quintillion is 10 18, an octillion is 10 27, etc. It will also not be difficult to figure out how many zeros are written in the number. To do this, you need to know a simple formula: 3 * x + 3 (where "x" in the formula is a Latin numeral).
English system
However, despite the simplicity of the American system, the English system is still more widespread in the world, which is a system for naming numbers with a long scale. Since 1948, it has been used in countries such as France, Great Britain, Spain, as well as in countries that were former colonies of England and Spain. The construction of numbers here is also quite simple: the suffix "-million" is added to the Latin designation. Further, if the number is 1000 times larger, the suffix "-billion" is added. How can you find out the number of zeros hidden in the number?
- If the number ends in "-million", you will need the formula 6 * x + 3 ("x" is a Latin numeral).
- If the number ends in "-billion", you will need the formula 6 * x + 6 (where "x", again, is a Latin numeral).
Examples of
At this stage, as an example, you can consider how the same numbers will be called, but in a different scale.
You can easily see that the same name in different systems denotes different numbers... For example, a trillion. Therefore, considering a number, you still need to first find out according to which system it is written.
Off-system numbers
It is worth mentioning that, in addition to the system numbers, there are also non-systemic numbers. Perhaps the largest number was lost among them? It's worth looking into this.
- Googol. This number is ten to the hundredth power, that is, one followed by one hundred zeros (10 100). This number was first mentioned back in 1938 by the scientist Edward Kasner. Very interesting fact: the world search engine "Google" is named after a rather large number at that time - googol. And the name was invented by Kasner's young nephew.
- Asankheya. This is a very interesting name, which is translated from Sanskrit as "innumerable". Its numerical value is one with 140 zeros - 10 140. The following fact will be interesting: it was known to people as early as 100 BC. e., as evidenced by the entry in the Jaina Sutra, a famous Buddhist treatise. This number was considered special, because it was believed that the same number of cosmic cycles is needed to reach nirvana. Also at that time this number was considered the largest.
- Googolplex. This number was invented by the same Edward Kasner and his aforementioned nephew. Its numerical designation is ten to the tenth power, which, in turn, consists of the hundredth power (that is, ten to the googolplex power). The scientist also said that in this way you can get as large a number as you want: googoltetraplex, googolhexaplex, googlectaplex, googoldecaplex, etc.
- Graham's number - G. This is the largest number recognized as such in the near 1980 by the Guinness Book of Records. It is significantly larger than googolplex and its derivatives. And scientists did say that the entire Universe is not able to contain the entire decimal notation Graham's numbers.
- Moser's number, Skuse's number. These numbers are also considered one of the largest and they are most often used when solving various hypotheses and theorems. And since these numbers cannot be written down by all generally accepted laws, each scientist does it in his own way.
Latest developments
However, it is still worth saying that there is no limit to perfection. And many scientists believed and still believe that the largest number has not yet been found. And, of course, they will be honored to do this. An American scientist from Missouri worked on this project for a long time, his works were crowned with success. On January 25, 2012, he found the new largest number in the world, which is seventeen million digits (which is the 49th Mersenne number). Note: until that time, the largest number was considered to be found by a computer in 2008, it consisted of 12 thousand digits and looked like this: 2 43112609 - 1.
Not the first time
It is worth saying that this has been confirmed by scientific researchers. This number passed three levels of verification by three scientists on different computers, which took a whopping 39 days. However, these are not the first achievements in such a search for an American scientist. He had previously opened the largest numbers. This happened in 2005 and 2006. In 2008, the computer interrupted the series of victories by Curtis Cooper, but in 2012 he regained the palm and the well-deserved title of discoverer.
About the system
How does this all happen, how do scientists find the largest numbers? So, today the computer does most of the work for them. In this case, Cooper used distributed computing. What does it mean? These calculations are carried out by programs installed on computers of Internet users who voluntarily decided to take part in the study. Within the framework of of this project 14 Mersenne numbers were identified, named after the French mathematician (this prime numbers, which are divisible only by themselves and by one). In the form of a formula, it looks like this: M n = 2 n - 1 ("n" in this formula is a natural number).
About bonuses
A logical question may arise: what makes scientists work in this direction? So, this, of course, is the passion and desire to be a pioneer. However, this also has its own bonuses: for his brainchild, Curtis Cooper received a cash prize of $ 3,000. But that's not all. The Electronic Frontier Special Fund (abbreviation: EFF) encourages this kind of quest and promises to immediately award cash prizes of $ 150,000 and $ 250,000 to those who submit 100 million and billion prime numbers for consideration. So there is no doubt that a huge number of scientists around the world are working in this direction today.
Simple conclusions
So what's the biggest number today? On this moment it was found by the American scientist from the University of Missouri Curtis Cooper, which can be written as follows: 2 57885161 - 1. Moreover, it is also the 48th number of the French mathematician Mersenne. But it should be said that there can be no end to this search. And it is not surprising if, after a certain time, scientists will submit to us for consideration the next newly found largest number in the world. There is no doubt that this will happen as soon as possible.
Have you ever thought how many zeros there are in one million? This is a pretty simple question. What about a billion or a trillion? One with nine zeros (1,000,000,000) - what is the name of the number?
A short list of numbers and their quantitative designation
- Ten (1 zero).
- One hundred (2 zeros).
- Thousand (3 zeros).
- Ten thousand (4 zeros).
- One hundred thousand (5 zeros).
- Million (6 zeros).
- Billion (9 zeros).
- Trillion (12 zeros).
- Quadrillion (15 zeros).
- Quintillon (18 zeros).
- Sextillion (21 zero).
- Septillon (24 zeros).
- Octalion (27 zeros).
- Nonalion (30 zeros).
- Decalion (33 zeros).
Grouping zeros
1,000,000,000 - what is the name of a number that has 9 zeros? This is a billion. For convenience, it is customary to group large numbers into three sets, separated from each other by a space or punctuation marks such as a comma or period.
This is done to make it easier to read and understand the quantitative value. For example, what is the name of the number 1,000,000,000? In this form, it is worthwhile to pretend a little, to count. And if you write 1,000,000,000, then immediately visually the task becomes easier, so you need to count not zeros, but triples of zeros.
Numbers with very many zeros
The most popular are Million and Billion (1,000,000,000). What is the name of a number with 100 zeros? This is the googol figure, also called Milton Sirotta. This is a wildly huge amount. Do you think this number is large? Then what about a googolplex, a one followed by a googol of zeros? This figure is so large that it is difficult to come up with a meaning for it. In fact, there is no need for such giants, except to count the number of atoms in an infinite universe.
Is 1 billion a lot?
There are two scales of measurement - short and long. Worldwide in the field of science and finance, 1 billion is 1,000 million. This is on a short scale. According to it, this is a number with 9 zeros.
There is also a long scale that is used in some European countries, including in France, and was previously used in Great Britain (until 1971), where a billion was 1 million million, that is, one and 12 zeros. This gradation is also called the long-term scale. The short scale is now dominant in financial and scientific matters.
Some European languages such as Swedish, Danish, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, German use a billion (or a billion) names in this system. In Russian, a number with 9 zeros is also described for the short scale of a thousand million, and a trillion is a million million. This avoids unnecessary confusion.
Conversational options
In Russian colloquial speech after the events of 1917 - the Great October Revolution - and the period of hyperinflation in the early 1920s. 1 billion rubles was called "Limard". And in the dashing 1990s, a new slang expression “watermelon” appeared for a billion, a million was called “lemon”.
The word “billion” is now used internationally. it natural number, which is displayed in decimal as 10 9 (one and 9 zeros). There is also another name - billion, which is not used in Russia and the CIS countries.
Billion = Billion?
A word such as billion is used to designate a billion only in those states in which the "short scale" is taken as the basis. These are countries like Russian Federation, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, USA, Canada, Greece and Turkey. In other countries, the term billion means the number 10 12, that is, one and 12 zeros. In countries with a "short scale", including Russia, this figure corresponds to 1 trillion.
Such confusion appeared in France at a time when the formation of such a science as algebra was taking place. Initially, the billion had 12 zeros. However, everything changed after the appearance of the main textbook on arithmetic (by Tranchan) in 1558), where a billion is already a number with 9 zeros (one thousand million).
For the next several centuries, these two concepts were used on an equal basis with each other. In the middle of the 20th century, namely in 1948, France switched to a long-scale number system. In this regard, the short scale, once borrowed from the French, is still different from the one they use today.
Historically, the United Kingdom has used a long-term billion, but since 1974, UK official statistics have used a short-term scale. Since the 1950s, the short-term scale has been increasingly used in the fields of technical writing and journalism, although the long-term scale still persisted.