[comp.sys.mac] BIG numbers

straka@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Straka) (04/18/88)

In article <7530@boring.cwi.nl> jurjen@cwi.nl (Jurjen N.E. Bos) writes:
>In article <10441@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> sarrel@oboe.cis.ohio-state.edu (Marc Sarrel) writes:
||Well, if you want to get _really_ picky, then you have to realize that
||(on the mac, at least) an icon also has a mask, which is another 16*16
||bits.  That makes the total number of icons:
||
||	2^(16*16+1) = 231,584,178,474,632,390,847,141,970,017,375,815,706,539,
||                          969,331,281,128,078,915,168,015,826,259,279,872
||
|
|because I have at least three programs that can do that. By the way, it
|will give you some three lines of digits.

A old scientific calculator DA from what was Batteries Included will easily
handle numbers up to about 1E5000.  I just did 2^(16*16*16), and got
1.044388881e+1233.  Also, did you know that 1750! = 2.098318983e+4917?
I know, of course you did!
-- 
Rich Straka     ihnp4!ihlpf!straka

Advice for the day: "MSDOS - just say no."

gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (04/25/88)

In article <4452@ihlpf.ATT.COM> straka@ihlpf.UUCP (55223-Straka,R.J.) writes:
-In article <7530@boring.cwi.nl> jurjen@cwi.nl (Jurjen N.E. Bos) writes:
->In article <10441@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> sarrel@oboe.cis.ohio-state.edu (Marc Sarrel) writes:
-||	2^(16*16+1) = 231,584,178,474,632,390,847,141,970,017,375,815,706,539,
-||                          969,331,281,128,078,915,168,015,826,259,279,872
-|because I have at least three programs that can do that. By the way, it
-|will give you some three lines of digits.
-A old scientific calculator DA from what was Batteries Included will easily
-handle numbers up to about 1E5000.  I just did 2^(16*16*16), and got
-1.044388881e+1233.  Also, did you know that 1750! = 2.098318983e+4917?

There is a considerable difference between a large exponent range and
a large number of significant digits.  The former is easy; the latter
is hard (at least if you try to compute as fast as possible it is).

Stirling's formula can be used to obtain good approximations for large
factorials.