RE: Working With Large Numbers
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg19673] RE: [mg19667] Working With Large Numbers
- From: "Ersek, Ted R" <ErsekTR at navair.navy.mil>
- Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 02:19:46 -0400
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hans Havermann wrote: ------------------------- Is there now, or will there ever (likely) be, a way of approximating very large numbers like Nest[Factorial, 3, 4]? ------------------------- Actually you can work with numbers that are quite large. For example the next two lines evaluate in a flash. In[1]:= 40000000.0! Out[1] 3.776664 10^286710624 In[2]:= Exp[10^25]-x^x Out[2]= E^10000000000000000000000000 - x^x You can also evaluate the problem you asked about (see the next line). I think it's returned with the head Factorial because computing the last Nest would have caused an overflow. Notice we get an overflow when we try to compute N[n1] or N[Exp[10^25]] below. The point where you get an overflow is given by $MaxNumber. In[3]:= n1=Nest[Factorial,3,4] Out[3]= (* A very large integer followed by "!". *) In[4]:= N[n1] General::ovfl:Overflow occurred in computation. Out[4]= Overflow[] In[5]:= N[Exp[10^25]] General::ovfl:Overflow occurred in computation. Out[5]= Overflow[] In[6]:= ?$MaxNumber $MaxNumber gives the magnitude of the maximum arbitrary-precision number that can be represented on a particular computer system. In[7]:= $MaxNumber Out[7]= 1.440397193981785 10^323228010 Notice I computed the Factorial of an approximate number above and got an answer in a flash. You could compute (40000000!) and the kernel will return a giant integer if you wait a very long time and your computer doesn't run out of memory. Going back to your question we can work with very large numbers to the extent that I do above. I think it might be possible for Wolfram Research to change future versions of Mathematica so the magnitude of numbers is only limited by the resources your computer has available. However, this will never happen if they don't see sufficient need for such a capability, and I suspect the need isn't there. -------------------- Regards, Ted Ersek For Mathematica tips, tricks see http://www.dot.net.au/~elisha/ersek/Tricks.html