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" The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom " -- Jon Stewart
ADDITIONAL LINKS
If you have read most or all the information on my site and are looking for more information then this is the page you want. The following is a list of links to other sites and pages that I think are either relevant to the subject of large numbers or are of general interest.
The purpose of this page is two-fold. Firstly it will lead you the reader to plenty of additional reading on large numbers if you want to know even more. Secondly it serves as a catalog for me to keep track of all the webpages on large numbers out there on the internet ... there is actually a lot more than you might think.
Awesome Large Number Sites
There are a number of sites I think are quite relevant to the subject of large numbers. This is just a few for starters, and I will be adding more as I go along...
Cookie Fonster's Pointless Large Number Stuff : Here is an awesome quality site devoted solely to googology. It's one of the few out there of the "second generation" of large number sites that is actually good! Of particular note is an expansive number list of over 1900 entries, the largest of it's kind if I'm not mistaken!
Lawrence Hollom's Extremely Big Numbers : This is the site in which Lawrence Hollom introduced the googology community to his hyperfactorial array notation, which was one of a few of the second generation notations that followed after Bowers' seminal work. Check it out for a piece of early googology history!
http://pages.prodigy.net/jhonig/bignum/ : This is jhonigs fascinating site on astronomical sized numbers. In the way of a tour jhonig explores all of the illion numbers up to a googol, and provides physical references for the size of each number. For example, under the entry for trillion, he reports the human body contains 50 trillion cells ! This is a great place to learn about just how big the known universe is , and simulataneously just how big astronomical numbers are.
Kokogiak's Megapenny Project : A special project of kokogiak media. In order to provide a greater understanding of the size of common large numbers (million , billion , trillion ) they take an ordinary object , a penny , and describe what it would be like to have a multitude of them ( ie. a million pennies, a billion, etc. ). They describe just how big a pile these would amount to, and they also go over every -illion number up to a quintillion, which would be enough to bury all of manhattan, skyscrapers and all ! Just click on "Enter the MegaPenny Project" and you will be taken on a tour of increasing amount of pennies, beginning with just 1.
Numbers by Robert Munafo : This is a link to part of Robert Munafo's popular large number site. This page is the beginning of his "number list" where he lists first zero and then positive real numbers of larger and larger sizes ! He reports properties for each entry and covers all sorts of topics within science and mathematics while doing so. This site is a rare example of a serious tour through large numbers and the mathematics involved !
Large Numbers by Robert Munafo : This is another one of Robert Munafo's great large number discussions. Here he considers the abstract features of the subject, and also goes over many notations , nomenclatures and theories along the way. Excellent reading for anyone who wants to learn more about large numbers.
The Googology Wiki : This website is a wiki which describes itself as " the free large number encyclopedia anyone can edit". Although relatively new you can still find out a lot of info if you're just beginning to learn about the world of large numbers. Mostly devoted to "named numbers" and descriptions of the more popular functions used to construct them.
Jonathan Bower's Old Website : This is Jonathan Bowers difficult to find original website that was first released around 2002. This is where he introduced his array notation for the first time. Some of the later numbers are defined very differently.
Jonathan Bower's New Website : Jonathan Bowers new website. Jonathan Bowers is an amateur mathematician who specializes in polytopes, higher dimensional analogies of polyhedra, and super giant numbers. He is the inventor of both the "Bower Style Acronyms" for polytopes, as well as "array notation". He also has coined over 400 number names of his own, some of which are among the largest numbers ever defined. Definitely check this out.
Chris Bird's New Super Huge Numbers : This is Chris Bird's new collection of articles on his array-variant notation, hosted on Robert Munafo's Site. Chris Bird provides one of the most sophisticated and complete descriptions of epsilon-zero and post-epsilon-zero recursive functions you'll find anywhere. Be warned though that this is not an easy read for beginners. Familiarity with chained-arrow notation will give you some grounding though his notation is far more sophisticated.
Big Psi : A massive Big Numbers project under construction by Franzes van Novaloka, Giga Gerard, Asamkhyeya dasa, and Webmouse. Here they discuss big numbers in general and also a special notation of their own construction. There mission seems to be to construct the biggest numbers in the world. This is definitely a site to keep an eye out for.
Blogs on Large Numbers
A Googol is a Tiny Dot : A whimsical googology blog by someone who identifies as "googology101". Some of his numbers have made it's way onto the googology wiki. Mostly for fun. He does however come up with an interesting extension of function powers.
Popular Articles on Large Numbers
A Fuga Really Big Numbers by Alistair Cockburn : A well known amateur googology article written by Alistair Cockburn in January of 2001 which introduced the large number community to the gargoogolplex, fzgoogolplex, fugagoogolplex, and megafugagoogolplex.
A Study of Lynz, and Y : This is a short work of amateur googology which introduces the time-dependent numbers the Lynz, and the Clarkkkkson. A Clarkkkkson is bigger than Graham's Number, proving that you don't have to be a googology expert to devise even larger numbers!
Big Numbers by Susan Stepney : This was a short article written by Susan Stepney about popular large number notations including up-arrows, Steinhaus' Polygons, and Conway Chained-arrows. It was one of the earliest large number articles I ever found on the web.
Extremely Large Numbers by Matt Hudelson : This is one of the more common large number pages you can find on the web. It discusses large numbers, leading up into the definition of a Moser. Page was written by Matt Hudelson.
Large Numbers (Wikipedia Article) : This article is commonly one of the first suggestions for a Large Number search on google.
These are the Biggest Numbers in the Universe : A survey of all the more popular and well known large numbers such as the googol, googolplex, Skewes' Number, and Graham's Number.
Who Can Name the Bigger Number? by Scott Aaronson : This is the popular scott aaronson article on large numbers that is said to have inspired the large number contest between Augustin Rayo and Adam Elga. An excellent read and a good introductory tour into large numbers leading up into some of the largest domains.
Forums on Large Numbers
Really Big Numbers : This was a forum page begun by Alistair Cockburn. It is where the distinction between the "fuga" and "megafuga" function was first made clear. It's also the first place on the internet I ever submitted something related to large numbers. I discuss the promaxima here for the first time.
My Number is Bigger : This is perhaps the most famous ongoing (computable) large number competitions on the internet! It's hosted on the xkcd forums, where the lengendary xkcd number was forged to "boggle the minds of mathematicians!". It is cited by Robert Munafo, and much of what we consider "googology" had it's beginnings here. There is a loose affiliation between those who frequent the xkcd forums and googology wiki.
Videos on Large Numbers
A Taste of Infinity : This 7 minute youtube video discusses the difference between a persons "feel" for the infinite, and actual infinity. To illustrate this point the narrator discusses the vastness of Graham's Number and trying to understand how huge it is. The narrator clearly has an atheist and finitist slant (at least where reality is concerned). None the less a rare and excellent video, and a great introduction to large numbers.
Googol, Googolplex & Graham's Number : In this youtube video a user uploaded a 7 minute portion of the BBC Horizon program "To infinity and Beyond" that discusses the googol, the googolplex and then graham's number. There is even a guest appearance by Graham himself. Unfortunately no real attempt is made to define "Graham's Number" other than to say its "much much larger than a googolplex". Of coarse, you know that doesn't fly on my site! Still it does a good job of popularizing large numbers.
Ballium's Number Video : This is a spoof video by MeerkatsAnonymous set up to look like a serious news item about one mathematicians discovery of the "largest number".
Very Large Unimaginable Numbers : This is a rare video that actually goes through large numbers beyond the popular -illion and googolplex paradigms that are so common and introduces Bowers numbers to a broader audience.
Zoom Videos
The following videos aren't directly related to large numbers but are rather Zoom videos. They are closely related to large numbers however because they can help you comprehend (or just be blown away) by exponential numbers. Check them out for some mind expanding experiences...
Hooray For Earth : This terrific little animated music video takes us through several levels of zooming through an isometric universe of wonder.
Mandelbrot Zoom 999 : This might be one of the fastest and longest Mandelbrot zooms you've ever seen. The magnification goes up by 999 orders of magnitude in the coarse of about 10 minutes. Just try to comprehend how large the original image expands by the end of the video. It would utterly dwarf the observable universe to a miniscule dot.
The Theory of Infinity : This slightly eerie independent short is an example of a classic universe zoom-out.
My Other Works
If you liked my large numbers site, check out these other projects of mine ...
http://polynominos.googlepages.com/home : This is my own site on the polynominoes. It goes over all the polynominoes up to order 4, and provides petnames for them. Also I discuss variations on Tetris that use different order polynominoes.
http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2002639/1/Saibians_Fables : This is an example of some of my creative writing. It's a collection of 3 short stories I wrote on fictionpress back in 2005. The url brings you to the first story of the collection ( Chapter 1 according to the fictionpress set-up). In the upper right corner there is a purple arrow button that you can press to jump to the next story in the collection.
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