Saturday, 24 January 2015

mathematics - What's the largest number you can spell?


If I give you one of each letter in the alphabet what's the largest you can spell (in word form)?


Bonus: What's the smallest?



Bonus 2: What if you can use the words "minus", "plus" and "times"?



Answer



For a number immensely bigger than $\omega$, consider the uncountably infinite number hidden below. (Note, by the way, that $\omega$ is countably infinite, and rather than being the biggest something, it is in fact “the smallest infinite ordinal ... as it is the least upper bound of the natural numbers” [1]). So omega is a good candidate for the first bonus, the smallest number one can spell if given one of each letter in the alphabet.


Answer:



The transfinite number aleph sixtyfour appears to be the biggest aleph ($\aleph$) number one can spell if given one of each letter in the alphabet.
Note that $\aleph_{64} > \aleph_{63} > ... \aleph_1 = 2^{\aleph_0} > \aleph_0 = \omega$.
(For a big number that doesn't quite work because it has two a's and e's, see wikipedia's Aleph-ω article; aleph omega is the least upper bound of ${\aleph_n : n\in\{0,1,2,\dots}\}$. But if we use five Roman and one Greek letter, or one Hebrew and one Greek letter, aleph $\omega$ or $\aleph_{\omega}$ work ok.)



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