A1-1 : Service Annoucements

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SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Here I discuss new content, modifications, and potential delays.

2011.06.30

Plans for the Summer

For the last month I have been steadily adding new content. I am currently on my summer break from college so I now have time to pursue on independent projects, including this site. Although I had previously stated that updates would be made quarter-annually, I have now realized that this is somewhat impractical. Because of the demands of college it has become clear that I would never have enough time to make significant progress on my site during the school year. The only time I would have is during my winter, and summer breaks. To compensate for the fact that I can only work on my website a part of the year I've decided not to do a single update, but rather get as much done on my website during the vacation. Mind you, I do have other interests and projects, and even other responsibilities, so I can't devote my whole summer to this site. None the less I have been making strides. I am definitely looking forward to the new content I'm planning on publishing. It will be some of the most interesting stuff on this site to date.

Specifically I'm planning to try and finish chapter 2-4, the chapter on the "illion series". This in itself is proving a massive project because several individuals have invented naming schemes over the last hundred years. I probably can not hope to catalog a complete list of systems, but I can certainly catalog the more well known and popular ones. I plan to have articles on the systems by Prof. Henkle, Mr. Ondrajka, Conway&Guy, Russ Rowlett, Donald Knuth, Jonathan Bowers, Harry Foundalis, and Louis Epstein. If I go along with what I'm planning chapter 2-4 will be the most content loaded chapter to date. I'm also planning to work on chapter 3-1 and introduce most of the well known large number functions including: Knuth Up arrows, Steinhaus-Moser Polygons, Grahams function, chain arrows, and many more. I also feel that chapter 1-1 is in need of repair. Being the introductory chapter its contents are important for what follows. I was never completely satisfied with how that chapter turned out. Some things I would like to add is an article on bases, the babylonian counting system, and revised material on tally systems, roman numerals, and egyptian numbers. Lastly I'm trying to improve the flow of the site to make it more user friendly. A chapter select has been added to "chapter pages" so that users can now jump to any chapter from any chapter, rather than having to return to the home page. The long series of introductory text on the homepage has now been relocated so users instantly get to see the chapter select. I am considering adding some kind of index at some point because eventually people are going to want to be able to find specific information quickly once the site starts to get even larger.

There is no telling how much material I'll be able to get done during the summer, but it is definitely my hope to at least get most of 2-4 and 3-1 done before the end of the summer. School starts towards the end of August. That means I still have about two months left. Most likely I'll resume where ever I leave off on my next winter break. In any case, expect good things for 2011. The site is finally starting to move past early development to become an actual resource, and a better addition to the wealth of information already out there. Stay tuned for 2011!

Sincerely,

-- Sbiis Saibian

2010.12.12 01:07 Sunday

New Content and A New Update Schedule

I have recently released new content. Because I was never happy with how I previously introduced counting numbers I decided to devise a new way to introduce the topic.

The first new article titled "A Definition of the Counting Numbers" provides a logical and simple way to define the Counting numbers without appealing to "number sense", "tally marks", "number names", formal set theories, or sophisticated formal methods. I simply use the intuitive notions of a collection to define number. I feel this is a much better way to introduce the subject. I have a new idea of how to develop the subject of large numbers for this site. Check "Future Developments" for a more complete explaination of this new development plan.

The Second new article is titled "Jacob's Ladder". It provides an introductory level excursion on generating large numbers. I use the biblical story of "Jacob's Ladder" as a metaphor for the quest to reach the infinite via the finite.

I am also planning to provide updates on a more regular basis. I will try to provide some kind of updates at least 4 times a year. That is every 3 months on average. Roughly I'd like to try an have an update for every season. This lastest update would be the winter update. I plan to have another update sometime in March of 2011.

Stay tuned for new developments.

Sincerely,

-- Sbiis Saibian

2009.04.07 16:48 Tuesday

SITE REACTIVATED AND ON PROBATIONARY STATUS

I'm proud to announcement that after 9 weeks of inactivity largenumbers.googlepages.com has officially been "reactivated" by myself ( Sbiis Saibian ). This means that I will again be devoted to providing new content, and modifying old content to provide the most complete and accurate learning experience into the world of large numbers available.

I am currently working on a whole new chapter, and have many ideas for new content which I am now developing.

Unfortunately I am still somewhat limited in the time I have available to work on this site. Therefore the website will temporarily be on a "probationary status". What this means in this context is that new content will be released much slower than normal. As I mentioned in an earlier announcement ( See 2009.01.10 ), producing new content every week has proven to be a feverish pace for me. Rather than merely decide a pace I will let the situation determine the pace. This means that there will be no definite time frame between updates.

It may be several weeks before I am ready to publish new content. That being said, I look forward to the release of the next big chapter : "Section II : Chapter 2 - The tools of Science". It will discuss both scientific notation and the SI prefixes in some depth. This chapter is meant to accompany "Section II : chapter 1" in that it provides an explaination for some of the notation and terminology used there. I believe the new chapter will be a valuable addition to the site.

Lastly I'd like to mention a small change to the "additional links" page. There is now a new website listed among my recommending sites. It's a wiki called "googology". Basically it's an encyclopedia for large numbers. A lot of the popular terminology and functions can be found here. It's goals seem to be similar to mine. On the "about us" page they explain the purpose of the sites existence :

" Googology Wiki was made because almost all information about googology was scattered all over the Internet. To study large numbers, you have to look all over the World Wide Web where you get bits and pieces of information on googology. There were no websites about googology where everything was brought to one spot—until now. " --Googology wiki site

This is actually one of my websites goals. I also added a link to another older project of mine. It's a small collection of short stories I wrote. It's listed below the link to my polynominoes website. They are actually a set of "fables" I wrote a few years back. If your interested just check out the "additional links" page under the "additional information" section, or you can jump directly to it here .

Just a quick note, the article entitled "Mathematicians unveil largest known integer" released on april 1st 2009 was simply an april fools joke. The information contained in it was almost entirely fictitious and was based off of another spoof article entitled "Numbers in the News : Mathematicians Discover largest number" by iowahawk. The original spoof article can be found here .

I hope this announcement alleviates any confusion in regards to this site and it's future development. I probably won't be making another announcement, but I will be making a new update soon, perhaps around the beginning of next month. I will have to see how things go.

Again I thank my visitors for their continued interest and hope to publish something new soon.

Sincerely ,

-- Sbiis Saibian

2009.03.28 21:54 Saturday

Site has been officially reactivated by author. Await further announcement with more details.

-- Sbiis Saibian

2009.01.24 10:16 Saturday

Firstly I am happy to report that I will probably be able to continue working on this website. This means that my findings will be published as I write articles explaining them, and it also means that new content will continue to be published for the forseeable future.

However, I still have other things I need to work on at this time. Since I can't be sure how long this will take I have made the decision that it would be best to put this website on temporary "hiatus".This means that while the site is on "hiatus" no new content will be published, although I may still occasionally drop by to make some corrections and further service announcements.

The amount of time for this status will be provisionally indefinite. When my schedule finally lets up enough to give me time to work on this site and provide updates at a reasonable pace I will make an announcement that the site is being "reactivated". Until then I will only make rare announcements if anything changes. I still have plans for this website and I hope that I will be able to return to it soon. I haven't given up yet, and all I ask is that you bare with me here as I get things in order. If you check in once and a while eventually I will return to my efforts to construct this site.

Thank you for your interest in this site whether your a new comer or return visitor. It remains to be seen what 2009 will bring...

Sincerely,

-- Sbiis Saibian

2009.01.10 14:27 Saturday

There will be no update on 2009.01.13 or 2009.01.14 for the coming week. The reason is that I have personal matters to attend to that will keep me busy, and I will not be working on my site for the coming days.

Whether an update will occur the following week is also unknown. The best case scenario is that an update will not be forthcoming for at least 3 weeks from the previous update. That would mean that if all goes well , the earliest new update might occur on 2009.01.27 or 2009.01.28 .

The growth and survival of this site is of coarse contingent on myself and my position to provide such a "service". If for whatever reason I am not able to continue working on this site, I will make arrangements to have the rest of my work published immediately on an as is basis and have it linked to my published sites and pages. I simply wish that whatever information I provide will be made use of, and that others will continue to improve the art of large numbers. I also hope that my findings will be recieved positively and will be of use to others. Note that this is not an endorsement for others to take credit for my work. However everyone is entitled to cite my work in their own research at their own choosing. This should go without saying of coarse. I also hope that I have given proper credit to my sources.

I'd like to thanks those who have visited my website, and welcome future visitors to view the content that has been produced. I also hope that this information will be disseminated properly so it can be used to fuel further study into large numbers.

If everything goes well, then I will continue to provide support for this site, and my findings will be published as I prepare articles explaining them. However, updates may be more paced from this point on. If you look at the updates column on the right side of my homepage you can observe that there has been an update roughly once a week since the inception of this site. This pace has proven to be somewhat feverish. I have been considering slowing the pace to a much more managable 1 update for every 2 weeks. If I do decide to make this standard policy then I will make an announcement about this change. I may also decide updates will be made either within 1 or 2 weeks of the previous update based on conditions. It is also possible that I may have to slow the pace further. Regardless however, it is my intention to continue to update this site when possible so that I can present as many of the interesting aspects of the subject of large numbers as possible.

The fact of the matter is that the subject of large numbers always has and always will be open ended. There probably will never be a final word on such a subject as long as there are still people interested in contemplating such abstractions. Likewise this site will probably never be finnished in any conclusive kind of way. As new findings are made, or I learn more about the information out there , I will try to accommodate accordingly.

The next goal will be to complete Section II in the first few months of 2009. How much time that will take is uncertain. However, the volume of work that I have produced in the small period of a month is encouraging. After this is complete there will be more for me to discuss, but I hesitate to say anything about it because that is still a ways off.

If your a new comer, feel free to explore this site. I hope that it proves entertaining and informative. I also hope that it not only inspires fascination with large numbers but with mathematics in general. It's a subject which is often under appreciated even in professional circles because it is purely "conceptual". None the less mathematics has been instrumental to our understanding of how our world works and how best to operate within it. Can any conception truly be so abstract as to bare no relevance to reality ? It's tempting to speculate that any thought composed within reality must bare some resemblance to it, and therefore some relevance. It's certainly an interesting question.

I'll will have to close on that note. Another service announcement might be made before another update, so keep posted.

Sincerely,

-- Sbiis Saibian

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