Used in great numbers for years. Not included in the collection of works

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? It's a billion. For convenience, large numbers are usually grouped in 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 France, and was previously used in the UK (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 prevalent in financial and scientific matters.

Some European languages \u200b\u200bsuch 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. This is a natural number, which is represented in decimal system as 10 9 (one and 9 zeros). There is also another name - billion, which is not used in Russia and the CIS countries.

Billion \u003d Billion?

Such a word 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 such as the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the 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 the long-term billion, but since 1974 the UK's official statistics have used a short-term scale. Since the 1950s, the short-term scale has been increasingly used in technical writing and journalism, although the long-term scale still persisted.

Sooner or later everyone is tormented by the question, what is the largest number. A child's question can be answered in a million. What's next? Trillion. And further? In fact, the answer to the question of what are the largest numbers is simple. Just add one to the largest number, as it will no longer be the largest. This procedure can be continued indefinitely. Those. is it not the largest number in the world? Is it infinity?

And if you ask the question: what is the largest number that exists, and what is its own name? Now we will all find out ...

There are two systems for naming numbers - American and English.

The American system is pretty simple. All the names of large numbers are built like this: at the beginning there is a Latin ordinal number, and at the end the suffix-million is added to it. The exception is the name "million" which is the name of the number thousand (lat. mille) and the increasing suffix-million (see table). This is how the numbers are obtained - trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion and decillion. The American system is used in the USA, Canada, France and Russia. You can find out the number of zeros in a number written in the American system using the simple formula 3 x + 3 (where x is a Latin numeral).

The English naming system is the most common in the world. It is used, for example, in Great Britain and Spain, as well as in most of the former English and Spanish colonies. The names of numbers in this system are built like this: so: the suffix-million is added to the Latin numeral, the next number (1000 times larger) is built according to the principle - the same Latin numeral, but the suffix is \u200b\u200b-billion. That is, after the trillion in the English system, there is a trillion, and only then a quadrillion, followed by a quadrillion, etc. Thus, a quadrillion in the English and American systems are completely different numbers! You can find out the number of zeros in a number written in the English system and ending with the suffix-million by the formula 6 x + 3 (where x is a Latin numeral) and by the formula 6 x + 6 for numbers ending in -billion.

Only the number billion (10 9) passed from the English system to the Russian language, which would still be more correct to call it as the Americans call it - a billion, since we have adopted the American system. But who in our country does something according to the rules! 😉 By the way, sometimes the word trillion is also used in Russian (you can see for yourself by running a search in Google or Yandex) and it means, apparently, 1000 trillion, i.e. quadrillion.

In addition to numbers written using Latin prefixes according to the American or English system, so-called off-system numbers are also known, i.e. numbers that have their own names without any Latin prefixes. There are several such numbers, but I will tell you more about them a little later.

Let's go back to notation using Latin numerals. It would seem that they can write numbers to infinity, but this is not entirely true. Let me explain why. Let's first see how the numbers from 1 to 10 33 are called:

And so, now the question arises, what's next. What's behind the decillion? In principle, of course, it is possible, of course, by combining prefixes to generate such monsters as: andecillion, duodecillion, tredecillion, quattordecillion, quindecillion, sexdecillion, septemdecillion, octodecillion and novemdecillion, but these will already have compound names, but we were interested in numbers. Therefore, according to this system, in addition to those indicated above, you can still get only three - vigintillion (from lat. viginti - twenty), centillion (from lat. centum - one hundred) and a million (from lat. mille - one thousand). The Romans did not have more than a thousand of their own names for numbers (all numbers over a thousand were composite). For example, a million (1,000,000) Romans called decies centena milia, that is, "ten hundred thousand". And now, in fact, the table:

Thus, according to such a system, the number is greater than 10 3003, which would have its own, non-compound name, it is impossible to get! Nevertheless, numbers over a million million are known - these are the very off-system numbers. Let's finally tell you about them.

The smallest such number is myriad (it is even in Dahl's dictionary), which means one hundred hundred, that is, 10,000. True, this word is outdated and practically not used, but it is curious that the word "myriad" is widely used, which does not mean a definite number at all, but an uncountable, uncountable set of something. It is believed that the word myriad came into European languages \u200b\u200bfrom ancient Egypt.

There are different opinions about the origin of this number. Some believe that it originated in Egypt, while others believe that it was born only in Ancient Greece. Be that as it may in reality, but the myriad gained fame thanks to the Greeks. Myriad was the name for 10,000, but there were no names for numbers over ten thousand. However, in the note "Psammit" (ie the calculus of sand), Archimedes showed how one can systematically construct and name arbitrarily large numbers. In particular, placing 10,000 (myriad) grains of sand in a poppy seed, he finds that in the Universe (a sphere with a diameter of a myriad of Earth's diameters) no more than 1063 grains of sand would fit (in our notation). It is curious that modern calculations of the number of atoms in the visible Universe lead to the number 1067 (just a myriad of times more). Archimedes suggested the following names for numbers:
1 myriad \u003d 104.
1 d-myriad \u003d myriad of myriads \u003d 108.
1 three-myriad \u003d di-myriad of di-myriads \u003d 1016.
1 tetra-myriad \u003d three-myriad three-myriad \u003d 1032.
etc.

Googol (from the English googol) is the number ten to the hundredth power, that is, one with one hundred zeros. Googol was first written about in 1938 in the article "New Names in Mathematics" in the January issue of Scripta Mathematica by the American mathematician Edward Kasner. According to him, his nine-year-old nephew Milton Sirotta suggested calling a large number "googol". This number became well-known thanks to the Google search engine named after him. Please note that "Google" is a trademark and googol is a number.

Edward Kasner.

On the Internet, you can often find a mention that Google is the largest number in the world - but this is not so ...

In the famous Buddhist treatise Jaina Sutra, dating back to 100 BC, the number asankheya (from Ch. asenci - incalculable), equal to 10 140. It is believed that this number is equal to the number of cosmic cycles required to attain nirvana.

Googolplex (eng. googolplex) - a number also invented by Kasner with his nephew and meaning one with a googol of zeros, that is, 10 10100. Here is how Kasner himself describes this "discovery":

Words of wisdom are spoken by children at least as often as by scientists. The name "googol" was invented by a child (Dr. Kasner "s nine-year-old nephew) who was asked to think up a name for a very big number, namely, 1 with a hundred zeros after it. He was very certain that this number was not infinite, and therefore equally certain that it had to have a name. At the same time that he suggested "googol" he gave a name for a still larger number: "Googolplex." A googolplex is much larger than a googol, but is still finite, as the inventor of the name was quick to point out.

Mathematics and the Imagination (1940) by Kasner and James R. Newman.

An even larger number than the googolplex, the Skewes "number, was proposed by Skewes in 1933 (Skewes. J. London Math. Soc. 8, 277-283, 1933.) in proving the Riemann conjecture concerning prime numbers. It means eto the extent eto the extent eto the 79th power, that is, eee79. Later, Riele (te Riele, H. J. J. "On the Sign of the Difference P(x) -Li (x). " Math. Comput. 48, 323-328, 1987) reduced the Skewes number to ee27 / 4, which is approximately 8.18510370. It is clear that since the value of the Skuse number depends on the number e, then it is not an integer, therefore we will not consider it, otherwise we would have to remember other non-natural numbers - pi, e, etc.

But it should be noted that there is a second Skuse number, which in mathematics is denoted as Sk2, which is even greater than the first Skuse number (Sk1). The second Skewes number was introduced by J. Skuse in the same article to denote a number for which the Riemann hypothesis is not valid. Sk2 is 101010103, which is 1010101000.

As you understand, the more degrees there are, the more difficult it is to understand which of the numbers is larger. For example, looking at the Skuse numbers, without special calculations, it is almost impossible to understand which of these two numbers is greater. Thus, it becomes inconvenient to use powers for very large numbers. Moreover, you can think of such numbers (and they have already been invented) when the degrees of degrees simply do not fit on the page. Yes, what a page! They will not fit, even in a book the size of the entire Universe! In this case, the question arises how to write them down. The problem, as you understand, is solvable, and mathematicians have developed several principles for writing such numbers. True, every mathematician who asked this problem invented his own way of writing, which led to the existence of several unrelated ways to write numbers - these are the notations of Knuth, Conway, Steinhouse, etc.

Consider the notation of Hugo Steinhaus (H. Steinhaus. Mathematical Snapshots, 3rd edn. 1983), which is pretty simple. Stein House proposed to write large numbers inside geometric shapes - a triangle, a square and a circle:

Steinhaus came up with two new super-large numbers. He named the number Mega and the number Megiston.

The mathematician Leo Moser refined Stenhouse's notation, which was limited by the fact that if it was required to write numbers much larger than a megiston, difficulties and inconveniences arose, since many circles had to be drawn inside one another. Moser suggested drawing not circles, but pentagons after the squares, then hexagons, and so on. He also proposed a formal notation for these polygons, so that numbers could be written down without drawing complex drawings. Moser's notation looks like this:

- n[k+1] = "n in n k-gons "\u003d n[k]n.

Thus, according to Moser's notation, the Steinhouse mega is written as 2, and the megiston as 10. In addition, Leo Moser suggested calling a polygon with the number of sides equal to a mega - mega. And he suggested the number "2 in Megagon", that is 2. This number became known as the Moser's number (Moser's number) or simply as moser.

But Moser is not the largest number either. The largest number ever used in mathematical proof is a limiting quantity known as the Graham "s number, first used in 1977 to prove one estimate in Ramsey's theory. It is associated with bichromatic hypercubes and cannot be expressed without the special 64-level system of special mathematical symbols introduced by Knuth in 1976.

Unfortunately, the number written in Knuth notation cannot be translated into the Moser system. Therefore, we will have to explain this system as well. In principle, there is nothing complicated in it either. Donald Knuth (yes, yes, this is the same Knuth who wrote The Art of Programming and created the TeX editor) invented the concept of superdegree, which he proposed to write down with arrows pointing up:

In general, it looks like this:

I think everything is clear, so back to Graham's number. Graham proposed the so-called G-numbers:

The G63 number became known as the Graham number (it is often denoted simply as G). This number is the largest known number in the world and is even included in the Guinness Book of Records.

So there are numbers greater than Graham's number? There is, of course, Graham's number + 1 to start with. As for the significant number ... well, there are some devilishly complex areas of mathematics (in particular, the area known as combinatorics) and computer science where numbers even larger than Graham's number occur. But we have almost reached the limit of what can be reasonably and clearly explained.

sources http://ctac.livejournal.com/23807.html
http://www.uznayvse.ru/interesting-facts/samoe-bolshoe-chislo.html
http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/quiz/310/

https://masterok.livejournal.com/4481720.html

John Sommer

Place zeros after any digit, or multiply with tens raised to any higher power. Little will not seem. A lot will show. But the bare recordings are still not very impressive. The piling zeros in the humanities cause not so much surprise as a slight yawn. In any case, to any largest number in the world that you can imagine, you can always add one more ... And the number will come out even more.

And yet, are there words in Russian or any other language for very large numbers? More than a million, billion, trillion, billion? And in general, how much is a billion?

It turns out that there are two systems for naming numbers. But not Arab, Egyptian, or any other ancient civilizations, but American and English.

In the American system numbers are called like this: the Latin numeral + - illion (suffix) is taken. Thus, the numbers are obtained:

Trillion - 1,000,000,000,000 (12 zeros)

Quadrillion - 1,000,000,000,000,000 (15 zeros)

Quintillion - 1 and 18 zeros

Sextillion - 1 and 21 zero

Septillion - 1 and 24 zeros

octillion - 1 and 27 zeros

Nonillion - 1 and 30 zeros

Decillion - 1 and 33 zeros

The formula is simple: 3 x + 3 (x is a Latin numeral)

In theory, there should also be numbers anilion (unus in Latin - one) and duolion (duo - two), but, in my opinion, such names are not used at all.

English number naming system more widespread.

Here, too, a Latin numeral is taken and the suffix-million is added to it. However, the name of the next number, which is 1000 times larger than the previous one, is formed using the same Latin number and the suffix - illiard. I mean:

Trillion - 1 and 21 zero (in the American system - sextillion!)

Trillion - 1 and 24 zeros (in the American system - septillion)

Quadrillion - 1 and 27 zeros

Quadrillion - 1 and 30 zeros

Quintillion - 1 and 33 zero

Queenilliard - 1 and 36 zeros

Sextillion - 1 and 39 zeros

Sexbillion - 1 and 42 zeros

The formulas for counting the number of zeros are:

For numbers ending in - illion - 6 x + 3

For numbers ending in - illiard - 6 x + 6

As you can see, confusion is possible. But let's not be afraid!

In Russia, the American system of naming numbers is adopted. From the English system, we borrowed the name of the number "billion" - 1,000,000,000 \u003d 10 9

And where is the "cherished" billion? - Why, a billion is a billion! American style. And we, although we use the American system, took the "billion" from the English one.

Using the Latin names of numbers and the American system, we will call the numbers:

- vigintillion - 1 and 63 zeros

- centillion - 1 and 303 zeros

- a million - one and 3003 zeros! Oh hoo ...

But this, it turns out, is not all. There are also non-systemic numbers.

And the first one is probably myriad - one hundred hundred \u003d 10,000

Googol (the well-known search engine is named after him) - one and one hundred zeros

In one of the Buddhist treatises, the number asankheya - one and one hundred forty zeros!

Number name googolplex (as well as googol) was invented by the English mathematician Edward Kasner and his nine-year-old nephew - the unit s - mother dear! - googol zeros !!!

But that's not all ...

The mathematician Skuse named Skuse's number after himself. It means eto the extent eto the extent eto the 79th power, that is, e e e 79

And then a great difficulty arose. You can think of names for numbers. But how to write them down? The number of degrees of degrees of degrees is already such that it simply does not disappear on the page! :)

And then some mathematicians began to write numbers in geometric shapes. And the first, they say, was invented by the outstanding writer and thinker Daniil Ivanovich Kharms.

And yet, what is the BIGGEST NUMBER IN THE WORLD? - It is called STASPLEX and is equal to G 100,

where G is the Graham number, the largest number ever used in mathematical proofs.

This number - a stasplex - was invented by a wonderful person, our compatriot Stas Kozlovsky, to LJ which I am addressing you :) - ctac

June 17th, 2015

“I see clusters of vague numbers that are hiding there, in the darkness, behind a small spot of light that the candle of the mind gives. They whisper to each other; conspiring who knows what. Perhaps they don't like us very much for capturing their little brothers with our minds. Or, perhaps, they simply lead an unambiguous numerical way of life, there, beyond our understanding ''.
Douglas Ray

We continue ours. Today we have numbers ...

And if you ask the question: what is the largest number that exists, and what is its own name?

Now we will all find out ...

There are two systems for naming numbers - American and English.

Only the number billion (10 9) passed from the English system to the Russian language, which would still be more correct to call it as the Americans call it - a billion, since we have adopted the American system. But who in our country does something according to the rules! ;-) By the way, sometimes the word trillion is also used in Russian (you can see for yourself by running a search in Google or Yandex) and it means, apparently, 1000 trillion, i.e. quadrillion.

Let's go back to writing using Latin numerals. It would seem that they can write numbers to infinity, but this is not entirely true. Let me explain why. Let's see for a start how the numbers from 1 to 10 33 are called:

And so, now the question arises, what's next. What's behind the decillion? In principle, of course, it is possible, of course, by combining prefixes to generate such monsters as: andecillion, duodecillion, tredecillion, quattordecillion, quindecillion, sexdecillion, septemdecillion, octodecillion and novemdecillion, but these will already have compound names, but we were interested in numbers. Therefore, according to this system, in addition to those indicated above, you can still get only three - vigintillion (from lat.viginti - twenty), centillion (from lat.centum - one hundred) and a million (from lat.mille - one thousand). The Romans did not have more than a thousand of their own names for numbers (all numbers over a thousand were composite). For example, a million (1,000,000) Romans calleddecies centena milia, that is, "ten hundred thousand". And now, in fact, the table:

Thus, according to a similar system, the numbers are greater than 10 3003 , which would have its own, non-composite name is impossible to get! Nevertheless, numbers over a million million are known - these are the very off-system numbers. Let's finally tell you about them.

The smallest such number is a myriad (it is even in Dahl's dictionary), which means one hundred hundreds, that is, 10,000. True, this word is outdated and practically not used, but it is curious that the word “myriad” is widely used, which does not mean a definite number at all, but an uncountable, uncountable set of something. It is believed that the word myriad came into European languages \u200b\u200bfrom ancient Egypt.

There are different opinions about the origin of this number. Some believe that it originated in Egypt, while others believe that it was born only in Ancient Greece. Be that as it may in reality, but the myriad gained fame thanks to the Greeks. Myriad was the name for 10,000, but there were no names for numbers over ten thousand. However, in the note "Psammit" (ie the calculus of sand), Archimedes showed how one can systematically construct and name arbitrarily large numbers. In particular, placing 10,000 (myriad) grains of sand in a poppy seed, he finds that in the Universe (a sphere with a diameter of a myriad of the Earth's diameters) no more than 1063 grains of sand. It is curious that modern calculations of the number of atoms in the visible universe lead to the number 1067 (just a myriad of times more). Archimedes suggested the following names for numbers:
1 myriad \u003d 10 4.
1 d-myriad \u003d myriad myriad \u003d 108 .
1 three-myriad \u003d di-myriad di-myriad \u003d 1016 .
1 tetra-myriad \u003d three-myriad three-myriad \u003d 1032 .
etc.

Googol (from the English googol) is the number ten to the hundredth power, that is, one with one hundred zeros. Googol was first written about in 1938 in the article "New Names in Mathematics" in the January issue of Scripta Mathematica by the American mathematician Edward Kasner. According to him, his nine-year-old nephew Milton Sirotta suggested calling a large number "googol". This number became well-known thanks to the search engine named after him. Google ... Note that "google" is a trademark and googol is a number.

Edward Kasner.

On the Internet, you can often come across a mention that - but it is not ...

In the famous Buddhist treatise Jaina Sutra, dating back to 100 BC, the number of asankheya (from Ch. asenci - uncountable) equal to 10 140. It is believed that this number is equal to the number of cosmic cycles required to attain nirvana.

Googolplex (eng. googolplex) - a number also invented by Kasner with his nephew and means one with a googol of zeros, that is, 10 10100 ... This is how Kasner himself describes this "discovery":

Words of wisdom are spoken by children at least as often as by scientists. The name "googol" was invented by a child (Dr. Kasner "s nine-year-old nephew) who was asked to think up a name for a very big number, namely, 1 with a hundred zeros after it. He was very certain that this number was not infinite, and therefore equally certain that it had to have a name. At the same time that he suggested "googol" he gave a name for a still larger number: "Googolplex." A googolplex is much larger than a googol, but is still finite, as the inventor of the name was quick to point out.
Mathematics and the Imagination (1940) by Kasner and James R. Newman.

An even larger number than the googolplex, the Skewes "number, was proposed by Skewes in 1933 (Skewes. J. London Math. Soc. 8, 277-283, 1933.) in proving the Riemann conjecture concerning prime numbers. It means eto the extent eto the extent eto the 79th power, that is, ee e 79 ... Later, Riele (te Riele, H. J. J. "On the Sign of the Difference P(x) -Li (x). " Math. Comput. 48, 323-328, 1987) reduced the Skewes number to ee 27/4 , which is approximately equal to 8.185 · 10 370. It is clear that since the value of the Skuse number depends on the number e, then it is not an integer, therefore we will not consider it, otherwise we would have to remember other non-natural numbers - pi, e, etc.

But it should be noted that there is a second Skuse number, which in mathematics is denoted as Sk2, which is even greater than the first Skuse number (Sk1). Second Skewes number, was introduced by J. Skuse in the same article to denote a number for which the Riemann hypothesis is not valid. Sk2 is 1010 10103 , i.e. 1010 101000 .

As you understand, the more there are in the number of degrees, the more difficult it is to understand which of the numbers is larger. For example, looking at the Skuse numbers, without special calculations, it is almost impossible to understand which of these two numbers is greater. Thus, it becomes inconvenient to use powers for very large numbers. Moreover, you can think of such numbers (and they have already been invented) when the degrees of degrees simply do not fit on the page. Yes, what a page! They will not fit, even in a book the size of the entire Universe! In this case, the question arises how to write them down. The problem, as you understand, is solvable, and mathematicians have developed several principles for writing such numbers. True, every mathematician who asked this problem came up with his own way of writing, which led to the existence of several unrelated ways to write numbers - these are the notations of Knuth, Conway, Steinhouse, etc.

Steinhaus came up with two new super-large numbers. He named the number Mega and the number Megiston.

In general, it looks like this:

I think everything is clear, so back to Graham's number. Graham proposed the so-called G-numbers:

G1 \u003d 3..3, where the number of superdegree arrows is 33.

G2 \u003d ..3, where the number of superdegree arrows is equal to G1.

G3 \u003d ..3, where the number of superdegree arrows is equal to G2.

G63 \u003d ..3, where the number of superdegree arrows is equal to G62.

The G63 number became known as the Graham number (it is often denoted simply as G). This number is the largest known number in the world and is even included in the Guinness Book of Records. And here

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 these particular 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 turn out to be interesting: in translation from the Latin language, 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 be easy 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, for 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 means 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 should be said that, in addition to the system numbers, there are also non-system numbers. Perhaps the largest number was lost among them? It's worth looking into this.

Googol. It 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. A 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 are 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 of Graham's number.
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 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 a 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 this project, 14 Mersenne numbers were determined, named after the French mathematician (these are prime numbers that are divisible only by themselves and by one). In the form of a formula, it looks like this: M n \u003d 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, it is, of course, 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 such searches and promises to immediately award cash prizes of $ 150,000 and $ 250,000 to those who submit 100 million and billion prime numbers. 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? At the 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.

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