What is the highest number you can count up to?
Jenny Podmore from Derbyshire (Age 5-14)
Erin Mchutchieson from Tyne and Wear (Age:5-14)
Filed under: Andrew Evans' Big Answers, Answered Big Questions, Mathematics Big Questions, age 5-14
What is the highest number you can count up to?
Posted on March 4, 2008 by Administrator
In theory, there isn’t an upper limit – any number you reach could just have 1 added to it to make a bigger number.
The largest number for which we have a name is “googolplex” – which is a one followed by a googol zeroes (a “googol” being a one followed by a hundred zeroes).
Practically, if you were to start counting from 1 the second you were born and increase by a number a second until you die at the age of 79 you’d reach only as high as 2,492,985,600 – less than half the number of people alive on the planet.
I would say that you can only count as long as you live but other than that there is no limit.
A very interesting question.
There is no limit to the highest number you can count to, becuase whatever number you can ever think of, no matter HOW big, I can always add another number to it, and make it even bigger!
And so, it carries on forever, or what the mathematicians call “infinity”.
However, the idea of counting to “infinity” leads to many interesting conclusions in mathematics, one of which is “calculus”, (the infintesimal calculus)
where …….
the idea of looking at the “changing” of “things” (like a vibrating string say) in smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and smaller, and smaller ………… (to an infinite number of times smaller) intervals .., that is, where the “interval” is sooooooooooo….. small it’s “dissappeared” …. leads to some VERY interesting conclusions !!
So …. your question actually is quite interesting if you think further !!
Depends on how high your willing to go
I agree that it does depend on how high your willing to go, but, according to wikipedia, the largest number for which we have a name is not actually googolplex, it’s called graham’s number. I cannot provide the exact value of the number, but I can provide an approximation of the diagram wikipedia have used to express it.
3[etc]…..[etc]3
…………………..
3[etc]….[etc]3 }64 layers
3[arrow]…[arrow]3
3[vertical arrow]..[vertical arrow]3
1000.
the highest number is achaly 3 can you beleve that?