Graham's Number Is Bigger Than Six Dimensions

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

A physicist asked how many dimensions did you have to have to guarantee that this particular mathematical property would exist, would always be guaranteed to hold? And what he showed was, was that it's the number had to be I think bigger than six dimensions. So if you're going to picture Graham's number in your head, you're storing a hell of a lot of information in your head and information ways. Every time you picture one of Graham's number's digits, you are going to add some maths to your head,. might only be a very microscopic amount, but it will be a little bit.

It’s a big universe we live in, so it comes as no surprise that big numbers are needed to describe it. There are roughly 10^22 stars in the observable universe, and about 10^88 particles altogether. But these numbers are nothing compared to some of the truly ginormous quantities that mathematicians have found to talk about, with inscrutable names like Graham’s Number and TREE(3). Could such immense numbers have any meaningful relationship with the physical world? In his recent book Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, theoretical physicist Antonio Padilla explores both our actual universe and the abstract world of immense numbers, and finds surprising connections between them.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Antonio (Tony) Padilla received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Durham. He is currently a Royal Society Research Fellow in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham. He is a frequent contributor to the YouTube series Sixty Symbols and Numberphile.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.