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Names of larger numbers, however, have a tenuous, artificial existence, rarely found outside definitions, lists, and discussions of how large numbers are named. Even well-established names like sextillion are rarely used, since in the context of science, including astronomy, where such large numbers often occur, they are nearly always written ...
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or 10 9 (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of English; it has long been established in American English and has since become common in Britain ...
In French, 36 and 36,000 are occasionally used as a synonym for "very many". In Hebrew and other Middle Eastern traditions, the number 40 is used to express a large but unspecific number, [24] [22] as in the Hebrew Bible's "forty days and forty nights", Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.
A function with a vertical asymptote is not helpful in defining a very large number, although the function increases very rapidly: one has to define an argument very close to the asymptote, i.e. use a very small number, and constructing that is equivalent to constructing a very large number, e.g. the reciprocal.
Kasner used it to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity, and in this role it is sometimes used in teaching mathematics. To put in perspective the size of a googol, the mass of an electron, just under 10 -30 kg, can be compared to the mass of the visible universe, estimated at between 10 50 and 10 60 kg. [ 5 ]
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Large numbers in mathematics may be large and finite, like a googol, or the large infinite cardinal numbers which have a subcategory here. Subcategories This category has the following 2 subcategories, out of 2 total.
Far larger finite numbers than any of these occur in modern mathematics. For instance, Graham's number is too large to reasonably express using exponentiation or even tetration. For more about modern usage for large numbers, see Large numbers. To handle these numbers, new notations are created and used. There is a large community of ...