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BusyBeaver(6) Is Quite Large

(scottaaronson.blog)
271 points bdr | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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charcircuit ◴[] No.44407196[source]
>imagine you had 10,000,000_10 grains of sand. Then you could … well, uh … you could fill about 10,000,000_10 copies of the observable universe with that sand. I hope that helps people visualize it!

People can't visualize numbers that big. There's more ways to express numbers than just counting them. For example a single grain of sand has infinite states it can be in (there are an infinite amount of real numbers), so you could say a single grain of sand could represent BB(6). Combinations can grow exponentially, so that may be something useful to try and express it.

replies(3): >>44407250 #>>44407263 #>>44407543 #
1. Dylan16807 ◴[] No.44407543[source]
If the universe rounds to the nearest Planck unit, then a grain of sand suddenly has not all that many states.

Using infinite precision to make things seem tractable is sleight of hand in my book. Stick with integers when you're describing scale.