DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... What's the biggest number you can think of?

This is about that commercial for, some company, where the adult sits with a group of children in a school and gets there answers to questions.
You've seen this commercial, and I have. But it hit me one time, they don't chose the biggest number.

He asks the question and there's four answers (actually 5)
1. A billion, trillion, zillion
2, Ten
3 Infinity !!!
4 Infinity and 1.

5 Then the mans answer, " We were looking for Infinity + Infinity " (which is wrong)

6, Then one of the children says, " what about Infintiy TIMES infinity". And the man makes a gesture like his mind is being blown.

But that is also wrong. The biggest number in that commercial is number 4. Infinity and 1. But Why?

Finite means it is finite and can be measured or grasped, while infinite means it goes on forever.
So answer #3 infinity, which is from the root word infinite, would include infinity + infinity because the first infinity is actually infinityyyyy ... forever.

Also infinity + infinity , and infinity times infinity , would also just be going on forever...

So all 3 answers, Infinity, Infinity + infinity, and infinity times infinity, are describing one answer that would be the result that is the concept of infinity...
going on forever.

But! The kid who says infinity and 1, has described a sum, that would include the concept of going on forever and ever and then being 1 more!

And that is the biggest number in the commercial!

Is this connected to the Davone Bess poll somehow? Because infinity ( ~ ) is too slow a number for a WR to wear. JMO, of course.

Edit: Yes, I know that ~ is not the symbol for infinity, but my keyboard doesn't have a sideways 8. Why?

So if I'm understanding you correctly, Infinity plus 2 would be greater yet?

Infinity and 2.
pfft! I'm not even sure if I agree with myself anymore!

Someone call Dr. Drew!

This doesn't really make a lot of sense. Infinity isn't a number in the sense that you can add or multiply it and get other things -- also, there are many different infinities in mathematics.

It only makes sense if you speak THROW LONG. I suggest you go to www.RosettaStone.com/THROW_LONG and download it. Hey, look, a squirrel!

I think the bigger question is weather it's better to be fast or slow.

The biggest number with a name is a Googolplexian. That is a one followed by a googolplex of zeros.

A googolplex is the 2nd largest number with a name. It is a one with a googol of zeros after it.

A googol is a one followed by a hundred zeros.

Here is a website that has a Googolplexian. Kind of cool to see how many zeros there actually are.

website

Can you really conceive an infinite thing, or is the conception a mathematical complex to which you affix the label "infinity," a conception in theoretical proof only rather than the infinite as a concrete thing? The former we can certainly do, but our brains are not amenable to the latter.

Largest number with a name. Your number would be bigger but does not have a name. Maybe we can start a grassroots campaign to give a nine followed by a googolplex of nines the name jfanent. but you have to type in all the 9's on the application

Rhymes with infinite???

jc

Googolplexian x Googolplexian

Awesome video. I recommend anyone with the least bit of interest in numbers take the 7 minutes to watch that video.

I don't know how thoroughly I can conceive a finite baseball, but I have the intuition that I can conceive it in a way that I cannot conceive an infinite God.

I'm surprised I didn't get more arguments as to which answer in that commercial is more correct. But I think we ruled out ten. That kid is going to make a good lawyer he was looking for an argument that he could rebut.

Infinity is largest, sure, but if you could add 1 to it, it would be larger.

It's like in " this is spinal tap" when you turn it up to like Eleven!

In regards to the concept of God and forever, the concept of endless future years of forever doesn't make sense to me. The only way it makes sense is to contemplate an existence outside of time. An endpoint where time no longer exists.

That we can theorize an infinite set is quite true. It must be infinite because there is no end to the numbers we could produce in that set. And we can know this in the way that you describe. But notice in your description you listed some numbers that exist in an infinite set. No matter how many numbers we come up with, we still have only a finite understanding of an infinite set insofar as our mental representations of such things are concerned.

Perhaps I am not explaining this well enough. Let's try an analogy. Our physical world as described by quantum mechanics is theoretically sound in general; at least, it holds up in experimentation. But what quantum mechanics tells us about how the physical world operates is counter-intuitive and sometimes paradoxical. Now, we can come up with theories to explain the behavior of physical matter, and we can use these theories as mental representations for how the world really is, but we cannot actually conceive of the world revealed by quantum mechanics. In the same way, we can postulate an infinite set and come up with mathematical proofs for the infinite set, but when we reflect on what an infinite set might be in reality, we find that we can only understand it theoretically.

Perhaps I'm using the word "conceive" too loosely. Certainly we have a concept of an infinite set, but my point is that when this concept is scrutinized, it turns out that the infinite is not represented by the infinite per se. Instead, it is represented by the repitition of the finite or by theories and mathematical proofs. I know that an infinite set exists because I have these proofs that tell me so, and I can conceive an infinite set in theory, but I have no literal mental representation for an infinite set.

Now, I don't know how well this relates to my original claim that no one can conceive an infinite God since it is a comparison between numbers and some kind of substance, but the same logic applies. Think about the largest thing you can actually hold in your mind and then double it, and double it again, and again. This mental operation can be carried out many times, and the thing conceived grows very large indeed, but at what point are you no longer conceiving a very large finite thing and instead conceiving of an infinite thing? Again, we can indeed theorize the infinity of God by, for example, trying to think about the inversion of a finite thing. But all we can conceive is the notion of an inversion itself, not the infinite thing that would result. All of these mental operations and representations only substitute for what an infinite thing might actually be, but we cannot get past the substitutions to hold in our minds the infinite thing to which our theories point.

Your biggest problem is you are trying to qualify infinity as number and it's not.You need a paradigm shift where you stop trying figure out how many zeros there are and just recognize it as a set of numbers that never ends.

How do you view gravity? We can't touch it, there are no gravity molecules, you can't grab a slice of gravity. Sure we see the affects of it, 9.8 m/s squared, but it's still an abstract concept that we know little about.

How do you view time? We have a completely arbitrary system for keeping time and we see it's affects but what is time? Imagine trying to describe time without a clock? Would time exist without a clock or measuring device? There are some theories that time is finite.

I group infinity in with concepts like gravity and time where we understand their affects and we rely upon their affects for a great many things, but they are concepts which remind me of sand. The harder you squeeze your grip, with your mind, the less of sand/ information you retain.

The biggest number I can think of is any number anyone else can come up with ....... plus one.

Eleventy billion +12

Thanks. I thought it was a neat explanation of just how large these numbers were.

My age

I am






just me.

They tried carbon dating only to discover GM is over 99% methane.