Large Numbers in Some Noncomputable Sequences
The busy beaver function Σ is an example of a function which grows faster than any computable function. Its value for even relatively small input is huge. The values of Σ(n) for n = 1, 2, 3, 4 are 1, 4, 6, 13 (sequence A028444 in OEIS). Σ(5) is not known but is definitely ≥ 4098. Σ(6) is at least 3.5×1018267.
Some of the work by Harvey Friedman also involve sequences that grow faster than any computable function.
Read more about this topic: Large Numbers
Famous quotes containing the words large and/or numbers:
“The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.”
—Primo Levi (19191987)
“And when all bodies meet
In Lethe to be drowned,
Then only numbers sweet
With endless life are crowned.”
—Robert Herrick (15911674)