Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[jasonlulu_2000]

The writing of large numbers seems too trivial a matter to which to devote so many pages.

i just couldn't understand what "large numbers" means.

Thanks.

jasonlulu

[alks]

[lotus]

Hi jasonlulu_2000,

It may mean many different things depending on context. It may even be saying it tongue-in-cheek (trying to be facetious).

It may mean trying to imagine the distance of a light year (distance traveled by light in a year). That's a very long ways!

It may mean figuring out the number of prime numbers (so far, there's no known end). Prime numbers are natural numbers which have only two divisors, the number itself and 1. An example is 13. There are no positive integers which can be multiplied to get you 13 other than 1 and 13.

It may mean numbers which have a large number of trailing digits - like the irrational constant Pi, which is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter of the circle. The number of trailing digits after the decimal point is infinite. There are no know combination of numerator and denominator which will give you Pi.

It may mean an extremely large valued number, such a googol (10 raised to the power of 100) or a googolplex (10 raised to the power of a googol).

Large numbers may mean a large number of things.


--lotus