The largest in value. What is the largest number? Meaning in "small count"

Many are interested in questions about how large numbers are called and what number is the largest in the world. These interesting questions will be dealt with in this article.

Story

The southern and eastern Slavic peoples used alphabetic numbering to write numbers, and only those letters that are in the Greek alphabet. Above the letter, which denoted the number, they put a special “titlo” icon. The numerical values ​​of the letters increased in the same order in which the letters followed in the Greek alphabet (in the Slavic alphabet, the order of the letters was slightly different). In Russia, Slavic numbering was preserved until the end of the 17th century, and under Peter I they switched to “Arabic numbering”, which we still use today.

The names of the numbers also changed. So, until the 15th century, the number “twenty” was designated as “two ten” (two tens), and then it was reduced for faster pronunciation. The number 40 until the 15th century was called “fourty”, then it was replaced by the word “forty”, which originally denoted a bag containing 40 squirrel or sable skins. The name "million" appeared in Italy in 1500. It was formed by adding an augmentative suffix to the number "mille" (thousand). Later, this name came to Russian.

In the old (XVIII century) "Arithmetic" of Magnitsky, there is a table of names of numbers, brought to the "quadrillion" (10 ^ 24, according to the system through 6 digits). Perelman Ya.I. in the book "Entertaining Arithmetic" the names of large numbers of that time are given, somewhat different from today: septillon (10 ^ 42), octalion (10 ^ 48), nonalion (10 ^ 54), decalion (10 ^ 60), endecalion (10 ^ 66), dodecalion (10 ^ 72) and it is written that "there are no further names."

Ways to build names of large numbers

There are 2 main ways to name large numbers:

  • American system, which is used in the USA, Russia, France, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Brazil. The names of large numbers are built quite simply: at the beginning there is a Latin ordinal number, and the suffix “-million” is added to it at the end. The exception is the number "million", which is the name of the number one thousand (mille) and the magnifying suffix "-million". The number of zeros in a number that is written in the American system can be found by the formula: 3x + 3, where x is a Latin ordinal number
  • English system most common in the world, it is used in Germany, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Portugal. The names of numbers according to this system are built as follows: the suffix “-million” is added to the Latin numeral, the next number (1000 times larger) is the same Latin numeral, but the suffix “-billion” is added. The number of zeros in a number that is written in the English system and ends with the suffix “-million” can be found by the formula: 6x + 3, where x is a Latin ordinal number. The number of zeros in numbers ending in the suffix “-billion” can be found by the formula: 6x + 6, where x is a Latin ordinal number.

From the English system, only the word billion passed into the Russian language, which is still more correct to call it the way the Americans call it - billion (since the American system for naming numbers is used in Russian).

In addition to numbers that are written in the American or English system using Latin prefixes, non-systemic numbers are known that have their own names without Latin prefixes.

Proper names for large numbers

Number Latin numeral Name Practical value
10 1 10 ten Number of fingers on 2 hands
10 2 100 one hundred Approximately half the number of all states on Earth
10 3 1000 thousand Approximate number of days in 3 years
10 6 1000 000 unus (I) million 5 times more than the number of drops in a 10-litre. bucket of water
10 9 1000 000 000 duo(II) billion (billion) Approximate population of India
10 12 1000 000 000 000 tres(III) trillion
10 15 1000 000 000 000 000 quattor(IV) quadrillion 1/30 of the length of a parsec in meters
10 18 quinque (V) quintillion 1/18 of the number of grains from the legendary award to the inventor of chess
10 21 sex (VI) sextillion 1/6 of the mass of the planet Earth in tons
10 24 septem(VII) septillion Number of molecules in 37.2 liters of air
10 27 octo(VIII) octillion Half the mass of Jupiter in kilograms
10 30 novem(IX) quintillion 1/5 of all microorganisms on the planet
10 33 decem(X) decillion Half the mass of the Sun in grams
  • Vigintillion (from lat. viginti - twenty) - 10 63
  • Centillion (from Latin centum - one hundred) - 10 303
  • Milleillion (from Latin mille - thousand) - 10 3003

For numbers greater than a thousand, the Romans did not have their own names (all the names of numbers below were composite).

Compound names for large numbers

In addition to their own names, for numbers greater than 10 33 you can get compound names by combining prefixes.

Compound names for large numbers

Number Latin numeral Name Practical value
10 36 undecim (XI) andecillion
10 39 duodecim(XII) duodecillion
10 42 tredecim(XIII) tredecillion 1/100 of the number of air molecules on Earth
10 45 quattuordecim (XIV) quattordecillion
10 48 quindecim (XV) quindecillion
10 51 sedecim (XVI) sexdecillion
10 54 septendecim (XVII) septemdecillion
10 57 octodecillion So many elementary particles in the sun
10 60 novemdecillion
10 63 viginti (XX) vigintillion
10 66 unus et viginti (XXI) anvigintillion
10 69 duo et viginti (XXII) duovigintillion
10 72 tres et viginti (XXIII) trevigintillion
10 75 quattorvigintillion
10 78 quinvigintillion
10 81 sexvigintillion So many elementary particles in the universe
10 84 septemvigintillion
10 87 octovigintillion
10 90 novemvigintillion
10 93 triginta (XXX) trigintillion
10 96 antirigintillion
  • 10 123 - quadragintillion
  • 10 153 - quinquagintillion
  • 10 183 - sexagintillion
  • 10 213 - septuagintillion
  • 10 243 - octogintillion
  • 10 273 - nonagintillion
  • 10 303 - centillion

Further names can be obtained directly or reverse order Latin numerals (as it is not known correctly):

  • 10 306 - ancentillion or centunillion
  • 10 309 - duocentillion or centduollion
  • 10 312 - trecentillion or centtrillion
  • 10 315 - quattorcentillion or centquadrillion
  • 10 402 - tretrigintacentillion or centtretrigintillion

The second spelling is more in line with the construction of numerals in Latin and avoids ambiguities (for example, in the number trecentillion, which, according to the first spelling, is both 10903 and 10312).

  • 10 603 - decentillion
  • 10 903 - trecentillion
  • 10 1203 - quadringentillion
  • 10 1503 - quingentillion
  • 10 1803 - sescentillion
  • 10 2103 - septingentillion
  • 10 2403 - octingentillion
  • 10 2703 - nongentillion
  • 10 3003 - million
  • 10 6003 - duomillion
  • 10 9003 - tremillion
  • 10 15003 - quinquemillion
  • 10 308760 -ion
  • 10 3000003 - miamimiliaillion
  • 10 6000003 - duomyamimiliaillion

myriad– 10,000. The name is obsolete and practically never used. However, the word “myriad” is widely used, which means not certain number, but an uncountable, uncountable set of something.

googol ( English . googol) — 10 100 . The American mathematician Edward Kasner first wrote about this number in 1938 in the journal Scripta Mathematica in the article “New Names in Mathematics”. According to him, his 9-year-old nephew Milton Sirotta suggested calling the number this way. This number became public knowledge thanks to the Google search engine, named after him.

Asankheyya(from Chinese asentzi - innumerable) - 10 1 4 0. This number is found in the famous Buddhist treatise Jaina Sutra (100 BC). It is believed that this number is equal to the number of cosmic cycles required to gain nirvana.

Googolplex ( English . Googolplex) — 10^10^100. This number was also invented by Edward Kasner and his nephew, it means one with a googol of zeros.

Skewes number (Skewes' number Sk 1) means e to the power of e to the power of e to the power of 79, i.e. e^e^e^79. This number was proposed by Skewes in 1933 (Skewes. J. London Math. Soc. 8, 277-283, 1933.) in proving the Riemann conjecture concerning prime numbers. Later, Riele (te Riele, H. J. J. "On the Sign of the Difference P(x)-Li(x"). Math. Comput. 48, 323-328, 1987) reduced Skuse's number to e^e^27/4, which is approximately equal to 8.185 10^370. However, this number is not an integer, so it is not included in the table of large numbers.

Second Skewes Number (Sk2) equals 10^10^10^10^3, which is 10^10^10^1000. This number was introduced by J. Skuse in the same article to denote the number up to which the Riemann hypothesis is valid.

For super-large numbers, it is inconvenient to use powers, so there are several ways to write numbers - the notations of Knuth, Conway, Steinhouse, etc.

Hugo Steinhaus suggested writing large numbers inside geometric shapes (triangle, square and circle).

The mathematician Leo Moser finalized Steinhaus's notation, suggesting that after the squares, draw not circles, but pentagons, then hexagons, and so on. Moser also proposed a formal notation for these polygons, so that the numbers could be written without drawing complex patterns.

Steinhouse came up with two new super-large numbers: Mega and Megiston. In Moser notation, they are written as follows: Mega – 2, Megiston– 10. Leo Moser suggested also calling a polygon with the number of sides equal to mega – megagon, and also suggested the number "2 in Megagon" - 2. The last number is known as Moser's number or just like Moser.

There are numbers bigger than Moser. The largest number that has been used in a mathematical proof is number Graham(Graham's number). It was first used in 1977 in the proof of one estimate in the Ramsey theory. This number is associated with bichromatic hypercubes and cannot be expressed without a special 64-level system of special mathematical symbols introduced by Knuth in 1976. Donald Knuth (who wrote The Art of Programming and created the TeX editor) came up with the concept of superpower, which he proposed to write with arrows pointing up:

In general

Graham suggested G-numbers:

The number G 63 is called the Graham number, often simply referred to as G. This number is the largest known number in the world and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

Once I read a tragic story about a Chukchi who was taught to count and write numbers by polar explorers. The magic of numbers impressed him so much that he decided to write down absolutely all the numbers in the world in a row, starting from one, in the notebook donated by the polar explorers. The Chukchi abandons all his affairs, stops communicating even with his own wife, no longer hunts seals and seals, but writes and writes numbers in a notebook .... So a year goes by. In the end, the notebook ends and the Chukchi realizes that he was able to write down only a small part of all the numbers. He weeps bitterly and in despair burns his scribbled notebook in order to start living the simple life of a fisherman again, no longer thinking about the mysterious infinity of numbers...

We will not repeat the feat of this Chukchi and try to find the largest number, since any number just needs to add one to get an even larger number. Let's ask ourselves a similar but different question: which of the numbers that have their own name is the largest?

Obviously, although the numbers themselves are infinite, they do not have very many proper names, since most of them are content with names made up of smaller numbers. So, for example, the numbers 1 and 100 have their own names "one" and "one hundred", and the name of the number 101 is already compound ("one hundred and one"). It is clear that in the final set of numbers that humanity has awarded with its own name, there must be some largest number. But what is it called and what is it equal to? Let's try to figure it out and find, in the end, this is the largest number!

Number

latin cardinal numeral

Russian prefix


"Short" and "long" scale

Story modern system The names of large numbers date back to the middle of the 15th century, when in Italy they began to use the words "million" (literally - a big thousand) for a thousand squared, "bimillion" for a million squared and "trimillion" for a million cubed. We know about this system thanks to the French mathematician Nicolas Chuquet (Nicolas Chuquet, c. 1450 - c. 1500): in his treatise "The Science of Numbers" (Triparty en la science des nombres, 1484), he developed this idea, proposing to further use the Latin cardinal numbers (see table), adding them to the ending "-million". So, Shuke's "bimillion" turned into a billion, "trimillion" into a trillion, and a million to the fourth power became a "quadrillion".

In Schücke's system, the number 10 9 , which was between a million and a billion, did not have its own name and was simply called "a thousand million", similarly, 10 15 was called "a thousand billion", 10 21 - "a thousand trillion", etc. It was not very convenient, and in 1549 the French writer and scientist Jacques Peletier du Mans (1517-1582) proposed to name such "intermediate" numbers using the same Latin prefixes, but the ending "-billion". So, 10 9 became known as "billion", 10 15 - "billiard", 10 21 - "trillion", etc.

The Shuquet-Peletier system gradually became popular and was used throughout Europe. However, in the 17th century, an unexpected problem arose. It turned out that for some reason some scientists began to get confused and call the number 10 9 not “a billion” or “a thousand million”, but “a billion”. Soon this error quickly spread, and a paradoxical situation arose - "billion" became simultaneously a synonym for "billion" (10 9) and "million million" (10 18).

This confusion continued for a long time and led to the fact that in the USA they created their own system for naming large numbers. According to the American system, the names of numbers are built in the same way as in the Schücke system - the Latin prefix and the ending "million". However, these numbers are different. If in the Schuecke system names with the ending "million" received numbers that were powers of a million, then in the American system the ending "-million" received the powers of a thousand. That is, a thousand million (1000 3 \u003d 10 9) began to be called a "billion", 1000 4 (10 12) - "trillion", 1000 5 (10 15) - "quadrillion", etc.

The old system of naming large numbers continued to be used in conservative Great Britain and began to be called "British" all over the world, despite the fact that it was invented by the French Shuquet and Peletier. However, in the 1970s, the UK officially switched to the "American system", which led to the fact that it became somehow strange to call one system American and another British. As a result, the American system is now commonly referred to as the "short scale" and the British or Chuquet-Peletier system as the "long scale".

In order not to get confused, let's sum up the intermediate result:

Number name

Value on the "short scale"

Value on the "long scale"

Billion

billiard

Trillion

trillion

quadrillion

quadrillion

Quintillion

quintillion

Sextillion

Sextillion

Septillion

Septilliard

Octillion

Octilliard

Quintillion

Nonilliard

Decillion

Decilliard


The short naming scale is now used in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Brazil and Puerto Rico. Russia, Denmark, Turkey, and Bulgaria also use the short scale, except that the number 109 is not called "billion" but "billion". The long scale continues to be used today in most other countries.

It is curious that in our country the final transition to the short scale took place only in the second half of the 20th century. So, for example, even Yakov Isidorovich Perelman (1882-1942) in his "Entertaining Arithmetic" mentions the parallel existence of two scales in the USSR. The short scale, according to Perelman, was used in everyday life and financial calculations, and the long one was used in scientific books on astronomy and physics. However, now it is wrong to use a long scale in Russia, although the numbers there are large.

But back to finding the largest number. After a decillion, the names of numbers are obtained by combining prefixes. This is how numbers such as undecillion, duodecillion, tredecillion, quattordecillion, quindecillion, sexdecillion, septemdecillion, octodecillion, novemdecillion, etc. are obtained. However, these names are no longer of interest to us, since we agreed to find the largest number with its own non-composite name.

If we turn to Latin grammar, then we find that the Romans had only three non-compound names for numbers more than ten: viginti - "twenty", centum - "one hundred" and mille - "thousand". For numbers greater than "thousand", the Romans did not have their own names. For example, the Romans called a million (1,000,000) "decies centena milia", that is, "ten times a hundred thousand". According to Schuecke's rule, these three remaining Latin numerals give us such names for numbers as "vigintillion", "centillion" and "milleillion".


So, we found out that on the "short scale" the maximum number that has its own name and is not a composite of smaller numbers is "million" (10 3003). If a “long scale” of naming numbers were adopted in Russia, then the largest number with its own name would be “million” (10 6003).

However, there are names for even larger numbers.

Numbers outside the system

Some numbers have their own name, without any connection with the naming system using Latin prefixes. And there are many such numbers. You can, for example, remember the number e, the number "pi", a dozen, the number of the beast, etc. However, since we are now interested in large numbers, we will consider only those numbers with their own non-compound name that are more than a million.

Until the 17th century, Rus' used its own system for naming numbers. Tens of thousands were called "darks," hundreds of thousands were called "legions," millions were called "leodres," tens of millions were called "ravens," and hundreds of millions were called "decks." This account up to hundreds of millions was called the “small account”, and in some manuscripts the authors also considered the “great account”, in which the same names were used for large numbers, but with a different meaning. So, "darkness" meant not ten thousand, but a thousand thousand (10 6), "legion" - the darkness of those (10 12); "leodr" - legion of legions (10 24), "raven" - leodr of leodres (10 48). For some reason, the “deck” in the great Slavic count was not called the “raven of ravens” (10 96), but only ten “ravens”, that is, 10 49 (see table).

Number name

Meaning in "small count"

Meaning in the "great account"

Designation

Raven (Raven)


The number 10100 also has its own name and was invented by a nine-year-old boy. And it was like that. In 1938, the American mathematician Edward Kasner (Edward Kasner, 1878-1955) was walking in the park with his two nephews and discussing large numbers with them. During the conversation, we talked about a number with one hundred zeros, which did not have its own name. One of his nephews, nine-year-old Milton Sirott, suggested calling this number "googol". In 1940, Edward Kasner, together with James Newman, wrote the non-fiction book Mathematics and the Imagination, where he taught mathematics lovers about the googol number. Google became even more widely known in the late 1990s, thanks to the Google search engine named after it.

The name for an even larger number than googol arose in 1950 thanks to the father of computer science, Claude Shannon (Claude Elwood Shannon, 1916-2001). In his article "Programming a Computer to Play Chess," he tried to estimate the number options chess game. According to him, each game lasts an average of 40 moves, and on each move the player chooses an average of 30 options, which corresponds to 900 40 (approximately equal to 10 118) game options. This work became widely known, and this number became known as the "Shannon number".

In the famous Buddhist treatise Jaina Sutra, dating back to 100 BC, the number "asankheya" is found equal to 10 140. It is believed that this number is equal to the number of cosmic cycles required to gain nirvana.

Nine-year-old Milton Sirotta entered the history of mathematics not only by inventing the googol number, but also by suggesting another number at the same time - “googolplex”, which is equal to 10 to the power of “googol”, that is, one with a googol of zeros.

Two more numbers larger than the googolplex were proposed by the South African mathematician Stanley Skewes (1899-1988) when proving the Riemann hypothesis. The first number, which later came to be called "Skeuse's first number", is equal to e to the extent e to the extent e to the power of 79, that is e e e 79 = 10 10 8.85.10 33 . However, the "second Skewes number" is even larger and is 10 10 10 1000 .

Obviously, the more degrees in the number of degrees, the more difficult it is to write down numbers and understand their meaning when reading. Moreover, it is possible to come up with such numbers (and they, by the way, have already been invented), when the degrees of degrees simply do not fit on the page. Yes, what a page! They won't even fit in a book the size of the entire universe! In this case, the question arises how to write down such numbers. The problem is, fortunately, resolvable, and mathematicians have developed several principles for writing such numbers. True, each mathematician who asked this problem came up with his own way of writing, which led to the existence of several unrelated ways to write large numbers - these are the notations of Knuth, Conway, Steinhaus, etc. We will now have to deal with some of them.

Other notations

In 1938, the same year that nine-year-old Milton Sirotta came up with the googol and googolplex numbers, Hugo Dionizy Steinhaus, 1887-1972, a book about entertaining mathematics, The Mathematical Kaleidoscope, was published in Poland. This book became very popular, went through many editions and was translated into many languages, including English and Russian. In it, Steinhaus, discussing large numbers, offers a simple way to write them using three geometric shapes - a triangle, a square and a circle:

"n in a triangle" means " n n»,
« n square" means " n V n triangles",
« n in a circle" means " n V n squares."

Explaining this way of writing, Steinhaus comes up with the number "mega" equal to 2 in a circle and shows that it is equal to 256 in a "square" or 256 in 256 triangles. To calculate it, you need to raise 256 to the power of 256, raise the resulting number 3.2.10 616 to the power of 3.2.10 616, then raise the resulting number to the power of the resulting number, and so on to raise to the power of 256 times. For example, the calculator in MS Windows cannot calculate due to overflow 256 even in two triangles. Approximately this huge number is 10 10 2.10 619 .

Having determined the number "mega", Steinhaus invites readers to independently evaluate another number - "medzon", equal to 3 in a circle. In another edition of the book, Steinhaus instead of the medzone proposes to estimate an even larger number - “megiston”, equal to 10 in a circle. Following Steinhaus, I will also recommend that readers break away from this text for a while and try to write these numbers themselves using ordinary powers in order to feel their gigantic magnitude.

However, there are names for O higher numbers. So, the Canadian mathematician Leo Moser (Leo Moser, 1921-1970) finalized the Steinhaus notation, which was limited by the fact that if it were necessary to write down numbers much larger than a megiston, then difficulties and inconveniences would arise, since one would have to draw many circles one inside another. Moser suggested drawing not circles after squares, but pentagons, then hexagons, and so on. He also proposed a formal notation for these polygons, so that numbers could be written without drawing complex patterns. Moser notation looks like this:

« n triangle" = n n = n;
« n in a square" = n = « n V n triangles" = nn;
« n in a pentagon" = n = « n V n squares" = nn;
« n V k+ 1-gon" = n[k+1] = " n V n k-gons" = n[k]n.

Thus, according to Moser's notation, the Steinhausian "mega" is written as 2, "medzon" as 3, and "megiston" as 10. In addition, Leo Moser suggested calling a polygon with a number of sides equal to mega - "megagon". And he proposed the number "2 in megagon", that is, 2. This number became known as the Moser number or simply as "moser".

But even "moser" is not the largest number. So, the largest number ever used in a mathematical proof is "Graham's number". This number was first used by the American mathematician Ronald Graham in 1977 when proving one estimate in Ramsey theory, namely when calculating the dimensions of certain n-dimensional bichromatic hypercubes. Graham's number gained fame only after the story about it in Martin Gardner's 1989 book "From Penrose Mosaics to Secure Ciphers".

To explain how large the Graham number is, one has to explain another way of writing large numbers, introduced by Donald Knuth in 1976. American professor Donald Knuth came up with the concept of superdegree, which he proposed to write with arrows pointing up:

I think that everything is clear, so let's get back to Graham's number. Ronald Graham proposed the so-called G-numbers:

Here is the number G 64 and is called the Graham number (it is often denoted simply as G). This number is the largest known number in the world used in a mathematical proof, and is even listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

And finally

Having written this article, I can not resist the temptation and come up with my own number. Let this number be called stasplex» and will be equal to the number G 100 . Memorize it, and when your children ask what is the largest number in the world, tell them that this number is called stasplex.

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In the names of Arabic numbers, each digit belongs to its category, and every three digits form a class. Thus, the last digit in a number indicates the number of units in it and is called, accordingly, the place of units. The next, second from the end, digit indicates tens (the tens digit), and the third digit from the end indicates the number of hundreds in the number - the hundreds digit. Further, the digits are repeated in the same way in turn in each class, denoting units, tens and hundreds in the classes of thousands, millions, and so on. If the number is small and does not contain a tens or hundreds digit, it is customary to take them as zero. Classes group numbers in numbers of three, often in computing devices or records a period or space is placed between classes to visually separate them. This is done to make it easier to read large numbers. Each class has its own name: the first three digits are the class of units, followed by the class of thousands, then millions, billions (or billions), and so on.

Since we use the decimal system, the basic unit of quantity is the ten, or 10 1 . Accordingly, with an increase in the number of digits in a number, the number of tens of 10 2, 10 3, 10 4, etc. also increases. Knowing the number of tens, you can easily determine the class and category of the number, for example, 10 16 is tens of quadrillions, and 3 × 10 16 is three tens of quadrillions. The decomposition of numbers into decimal components occurs as follows - each digit is displayed in a separate term, multiplied by the required coefficient 10 n, where n is the position of the digit in the count from left to right.
For example: 253 981=2×10 6 +5×10 5 +3×10 4 +9×10 3 +8×10 2 +1×10 1

Also, the power of 10 is also used in writing decimals: 10 (-1) is 0.1 or one tenth. Similarly with the previous paragraph, a decimal number can also be decomposed, in which case n will indicate the position of the digit from the comma from right to left, for example: 0.347629= 3x10 (-1) +4x10 (-2) +7x10 (-3) +6x10 (-4) +2x10 (-5) +9x10 (-6) )

Names of decimal numbers. Decimal numbers are read by the last digit after the decimal point, for example 0.325 - three hundred and twenty-five thousandths, where thousandths are the digit of the last digit 5.

Table of names of large numbers, digits and classes

1st class unit 1st unit digit
2nd place ten
3rd rank hundreds
1 = 10 0
10 = 10 1
100 = 10 2
2nd class thousand 1st digit units of thousands
2nd digit tens of thousands
3rd rank hundreds of thousands
1 000 = 10 3
10 000 = 10 4
100 000 = 10 5
3rd grade millions 1st digit units million
2nd digit tens of millions
3rd digit hundreds of millions
1 000 000 = 10 6
10 000 000 = 10 7
100 000 000 = 10 8
4th grade billions 1st digit units billion
2nd digit tens of billions
3rd digit hundreds of billions
1 000 000 000 = 10 9
10 000 000 000 = 10 10
100 000 000 000 = 10 11
5th grade trillions 1st digit trillion units
2nd digit tens of trillions
3rd digit hundred trillion
1 000 000 000 000 = 10 12
10 000 000 000 000 = 10 13
100 000 000 000 000 = 10 14
6th grade quadrillions 1st digit quadrillion units
2nd digit tens of quadrillions
3rd digit tens of quadrillions
1 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 15
10 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 16
100 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 17
7th grade quintillions 1st digit units of quintillions
2nd digit tens of quintillions
3rd rank hundred quintillion
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 18
10 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 19
100 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 20
8th grade sextillions 1st digit sextillion units
2nd digit tens of sextillions
3rd rank hundred sextillions
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 21
10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 22
1 00 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 23
9th grade septillion 1st digit units of septillion
2nd digit tens of septillions
3rd rank hundred septillion
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 24
10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 25
100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 26
10th class octillion 1st digit octillion units
2nd digit ten octillion
3rd rank hundred octillion
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 27
10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 28
100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 = 10 29

Once in childhood, we learned to count to ten, then to a hundred, then to a thousand. So what is the biggest number you know? A thousand, a million, a billion, a trillion ... And then? Petallion, someone will say, will be wrong, because he confuses the SI prefix with a completely different concept.

In fact, the question is not as simple as it seems at first glance. First, we are talking about naming the names of the powers of a thousand. And here, the first nuance that many people know from American films is that they call our billion a billion.

Further more, there are two types of scales - long and short. In our country, a short scale is used. In this scale, at each step, the mantis increases by three orders of magnitude, i.e. multiply by a thousand - a thousand 10 3, a million 10 6, a billion / billion 10 9, a trillion (10 12). In the long scale, after a billion 10 9 comes a billion 10 12, and in the future the mantisa already increases by six orders of magnitude, and the next number, which is called a trillion, already means 10 18.

But back to our native scale. Want to know what comes after a trillion? Please:

10 3 thousand
10 6 million
10 9 billion
10 12 trillion
10 15 quadrillion
10 18 quintillion
10 21 sextillion
10 24 septillion
10 27 octillion
10 30 nonillion
10 33 decillion
10 36 undecillion
10 39 dodecillion
10 42 tredecillion
10 45 quattuordecillion
10 48 quindecillion
10 51 sedecillion
10 54 septdecillion
10 57 duodevigintillion
10 60 undevigintillion
10 63 vigintillion
10 66 anvigintillion
10 69 duovigintillion
10 72 trevigintillion
10 75 quattorvigintillion
10 78 quinvintillion
10 81 sexwigintillion
10 84 septemvigintillion
10 87 octovigintillion
10 90 novemvigintillion
10 93 trigintillion
10 96 antirigintillion

On this number, our short scale does not stand up, and in the future, the mantissa increases progressively.

10 100 googol
10 123 quadragintillion
10 153 quinquagintillion
10,183 sexagintillion
10 213 septuagintillion
10,243 octogintillion
10,273 nonagintillion
10 303 centillion
10 306 centunillion
10 309 centduollion
10 312 centtrillion
10 315 centquadrillion
10 402 centtretrigintillion
10,603 decentillion
10 903 trecentillion
10 1203 quadringentillion
10 1503 quingentillion
10 1803 sescentillion
10 2103 septingentillion
10 2403 octingentillion
10 2703 nongentillion
10 3003 million
10 6003 duomillion
10 9003 tremillion
10 3000003 miamimiliaillion
10 6000003 duomyamimiliaillion
10 10 100 googolplex
10 3×n+3 zillion

googol(from the English googol) - a number, in the decimal number system, represented by a unit with 100 zeros:
10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
In 1938, the American mathematician Edward Kasner (Edward Kasner, 1878-1955) was walking in the park with his two nephews and discussing large numbers with them. During the conversation, we talked about a number with one hundred zeros, which did not have its own name. One of his nephews, nine-year-old Milton Sirotta, suggested calling this number "googol". In 1940, Edward Kasner, together with James Newman, wrote the popular science book "Mathematics and Imagination" ("New Names in Mathematics"), where he taught mathematics lovers about the googol number.
The term "googol" has no serious theoretical and practical significance. Kasner proposed it to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity, and for this purpose the term is sometimes used in the teaching of mathematics.

Googolplex(from the English googolplex) - a number represented by a unit with a googol of zeros. Like googol, the term googolplex was coined by American mathematician Edward Kasner and his nephew Milton Sirotta.
The number of googols is greater than the number of all particles in the part of the universe known to us, which ranges from 1079 to 1081. turn parts of the universe into paper and ink or into computer disk space.

Zillion(eng. zillion) is a common name for very large numbers.

This term does not have a strict mathematical definition. In 1996, Conway (English J. H. Conway) and Guy (English R. K. Guy) in their book English. The Book of Numbers defined a zillion of the nth power as 10 3×n+3 for the short scale number naming system.

Countless different numbers surround us every day. Surely many people at least once wondered what number is considered the largest. You can simply tell a child that this is a million, but adults are well aware that other numbers follow a million. For example, one has only to add one to the number every time, and it will become more and more - this happens ad infinitum. But if you disassemble the numbers that have names, you can find out what the largest number in the world is called.

The appearance of the names of numbers: what methods are used?

To date, there are 2 systems according to which names are given to numbers - American and English. The first is quite simple, and the second is the most common around the world. The American one allows you to give names to large numbers like this: first, the ordinal number in Latin is indicated, and then the suffix “million” is added (the exception here is a million, meaning a thousand). This system is used by Americans, French, Canadians, and it is also used in our country.


English is widely used in England and Spain. According to it, the numbers are named like this: the numeral in Latin is “plus” with the suffix “million”, and the next (a thousand times greater) number is “plus” “billion”. For example, a trillion comes first, followed by a trillion, a quadrillion follows a quadrillion, and so on.

So, the same number in different systems can mean different things, for example, an American billion in the English system is called a billion.

Off-system numbers

In addition to numbers that are written according to known systems (given above), there are also off-system ones. They have their own names, which do not include Latin prefixes.

You can start their consideration with a number called a myriad. It is defined as one hundred hundreds (10000). But for its intended purpose, this word is not used, but is used as an indication of an innumerable multitude. Even Dahl's dictionary will kindly provide a definition of such a number.

Next after the myriad is googol, denoting 10 to the power of 100. For the first time this name was used in 1938 by an American mathematician E. Kasner, who noted that his nephew came up with this name.


Google (search engine) got its name in honor of Google. Then 1 with a googol of zeros (1010100) is a googolplex - Kasner also came up with such a name.

Even larger than the googolplex is the Skewes number (e to the power of e to the power of e79), proposed by Skuse when proving the Riemann conjecture on prime numbers (1933). There is another Skewes number, but it is used when the Rimmann hypothesis is unfair. It is rather difficult to say which of them is greater, especially when it comes to large degrees. However, this number, despite its "enormity", cannot be considered the most-most of all those that have their own names.

And the leader among the largest numbers in the world is the Graham number (G64). It was he who was used for the first time to conduct proofs in the field of mathematical science (1977).


When it comes to such a number, you need to know that you cannot do without a special 64-level system created by Knuth - the reason for this is the connection of the number G with bichromatic hypercubes. Knuth invented the superdegree, and in order to make it convenient to record it, he suggested using the up arrows. So we learned what the largest number in the world is called. It is worth noting that this number G got into the pages of the famous Book of Records.

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