[seqfan] Re: A book about large numbers

Robert Munafo mrob27 at gmail.com
Fri Jun 3 07:14:11 CEST 2011


(Delayed reply because I was busy for a couple days)

If you have already worked through the readily available writings (such as
existing books, webpages like mind and the other one out there) then I would
recommend that you consider actually doing some writing of your own (or
"original research" as it's called by Wikipedia)

For example, if you look here:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_numbers#Systematically_creating_ever_faster_increasing_sequences

you'll see a step-by-step explanation of how Graham's number, certain values
of the Ackermann function, and other things involving chained arrows can be
related to one another.

There is a lot of similar work that needs to be done, because there are so
many people out there who have created different, incompatible systems of
notation and recursive functions for dealing with large numbers.

- Robert Munafo

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 13:24, Matevž Markovič
<matevz.markovic.v at gmail.com>wrote:

> I actually did read your entire webpage, mr. Robert :) I was looking for a
> book that would serve as advanced course to large numbers (something like a
> more detailed look on what you have already shown on your webpage).
>
> And yes, mr. Franklin, I am well aware of that. But I think that the
> recursive functions are too cumbersome to be useful in most cases.
> Especially if you are above class 2 or class 3 numbers. Anything more
> really
> is unreachable, but I think that there ought to be a better approach to
> representing at least class 2 numbers with reasonable error.
>
> Perhaps the answer to what could replace hyperoperators lies in graph
> theory? It seems unlikely, but still...
>
> Have a nice day!
>
> Matevž
>

-- 
  Robert Munafo  --  mrob.com
  Follow me at: fb.com/mrob27 - twitter.com/mrob_27 - mrob27.wordpress.com-
youtube.com/user/mrob143 - rilybot.blogspot.com



More information about the SeqFan mailing list