-3

The most famous large number that have appeared in mathematical papers is the Graham number. However, the Graham number is an upper bound, and its largeness has no meaning.

I would like to know about huge numbers that have deep mathematical meaning.

What are some mathematically significant numbers that are larger than a billion?

For example, the order of the monster group.

UPDATE:

  • Since the Mersenne primes are an important but prime set, it seems obvious that large ones exist. I want you to name a single number.

  • Numbers that have no eye-catching features other than size are not included.

  • Artificial numbers such as "pi times a billion" are excluded.

  • The Fermat number $F_5$ is certainly important, but I am looking for numbers that has important points outside of its historical context.

Kitamado
  • 525
  • 3
    a few years back there was a thing where a bunch of math youtubers made videos about their favorite numbers over one million. There's some good 'uns in there. https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/megafavnumbers – Dan Uznanski Aug 27 '23 at 14:47
  • 1
    $TREE(3)$ is a much much much much much larger number not "collapsing" which is important for a theorem in graph theory. – Peter Aug 27 '23 at 15:28
  • 1
    A billion is still a quite small number. There are all sort of numbers larger than a billion that have some importance (where "important" is of course a very subject word). – Peter Aug 27 '23 at 15:33
  • @Peter I have searched about TREE(3). I have read that it is impossible to be imagined and defies all attempts to describe it. I am really shocked. Many thanks to you, Peter, for introducing me to this very shocking number. – Mahmoud albahar Aug 27 '23 at 18:49
  • @Peter:While I was searching about TREE(3), I learned about Graham's number, which is super shocking but still smaller than TREE(3). – Mahmoud albahar Aug 27 '23 at 19:04
  • 1
    @Peter TREE(3) mentioned by Peter is an interesting number and I hope you will post it as an Answer! – Kitamado Aug 28 '23 at 05:37

3 Answers3

2

Littlewood proved that, contrary to then popular belief, there were infinitely many integers $n$ such that there were more primes less than $n$ congruent to $3 \pmod{4}$ than to $1$.

The first such $n$ (which I do not know, but which is probably known) would be an answer to this question.

This abstract of Carter Bays and Richard H. Hudson's On the Fluctuations of Littlewood for Primes of the Form $4n \pm 1$ suggests some other candidates.

Let $\pi_{b,c}(x)$ denote the number of primes $\leqslant x$ which are $\equiv c (\operatorname{mod} b)$. Among the first 950,000,000 integers there are only a few thousand integers $n$ with $\pi_{4,3}(n) > < \pi_{4,1}(n)$. The authors find three new widely spaced regions containing hundreds of millions of such integers; the density of these integers and the spacing of the regions is of some importance because of their intimate connection with the truth or falsity of the analogue of the Riemann hypothesis for $L(s)$. The discovery that the majority of all integers $n$ less than $2 \times 10^{10}$ with $\pi_{4,3}(n) < > \pi_{4,1}(n)$ are the 410,000,000 (consecutive) integers lying between 18,540,000,000 and 18,950,000,000 is a major surprise; results are carefully corroborated and some of the implications are discussed.

On the same topic, from the same paper, reported in Wolfram

Similarly, consider the list of the first n primes   {p_3,p_4,...,p_n} (mod 3), 
skipping p_1=2 and p_2=3 since 3=0 (mod 3).  This list contains equal numbers of 
remainders 2 and 1 at the values n=4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 22, 38, 48, 50, ... (OEIS A096629). 
The first value of n for which the list is biased towards 1 is n=23338590792, as first found by 
Bays and Hudson in 1978 (Derbyshire 2004, p. 126), giving the first few such values as 
23338590792, 23338590794, 23338590795, 23338590796, ... (OEIS A096630). 
Ethan Bolker
  • 95,224
  • 7
  • 108
  • 199
1

A few examples:

Magic Squares

$46656000000$: the smallest known, and likely smallest possible, magic product for a sixth-order multiplicative pandiagonal magic square. Sixth order is the smallest for which this problem is not definitively solved.

Digital combinations

$13223140496$: when this base 10 representation is concatenated with itself, the result becomes a square. This is the smallest known such example beginning with a nonzero digit.

$105263157894763842$: the smallest number whose double is a one-step cyclic permutation of itself; from the properties of the full-repetend decimal representation of $1/19$.

$666...666$ (61 digits): This number consists entirely of one digit in base 10, but it has a factor in which all ten digits appear equally (six times apiece), obtained by dividing the given number by $61$; from the full-repetend and equal-ocurrence properties of the decimal representation of $1/61$. Using $7,8$ or $9$ in place of $6$ gives similar results, but a smaller digit fails because a zero is lost at the beginning of the quotient.

Oscar Lanzi
  • 39,403
-1

Large primes are important, and types of primes are important as: Twin primes, Mersenne primes and many types.

These primes are important in number theory.

Do they give answer for you?

See the page for seeing the list of Mersenne primes:https://www.mersenne.org/

See the following nice number, I learned it from page $116$ of Elementary Number Theory With Applications By Thomas Koshy:

For the curious minded, the largest known prime, all of whose digits are also prime, is $72323252323272325252 * \frac{10^{3120} − 1}{10^{20} − 1} $ . Discovered in 1992 by Harvey Dubner of New Jersey, it has 3120 digits.

Another interesting number is:

$2^{70}=1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424$.

The sum of its digits is $70$.

  • Mersenne primes are indeed important. But Mersenne primes are a set of primes. It would be better to have one prime that is outstandingly important for a special reason. – Kitamado Aug 27 '23 at 13:56
  • There exists nice number that has cool property, I will add it to my answer. – Mahmoud albahar Aug 27 '23 at 13:57
  • very nice number! Do numbers with these properties have names? – Kitamado Aug 27 '23 at 14:07
  • The book didn't mention name for it. – Mahmoud albahar Aug 27 '23 at 14:11
  • If there are only a finite number of "numbers such that each digit is prime," then the largest number satisfies the condition is what I want. – Kitamado Aug 27 '23 at 14:13
  • 1
    There should be even infinite many primes consisting of only digits $2$ and $3$ and I think huge random examples are not too hard to be found. I am surprised that the largest known prime with every digit prime is so small. Maybe , the catch is that the number must be a proven prime ? – Peter Aug 29 '23 at 14:22
  • @Peter: I saw your nice profile on MathStack. You are one who greatly loves huge numbers. So, this 3120-digit number cannot possibly satisfy you. I am really pleased by your questions and answers on MathStack. You really contribute greatly to MathStack. I was shocked and my mind was blown to a very high degree when I read about Graham's number and TREE(3). – Mahmoud albahar Aug 29 '23 at 14:35
  • @Peter: For me, I am one who loves and is obsessed with cardinal numbers. Another type of numbers that I love and am obsessed with are irrational numbers, algebraic numbers, and transcendental numbers. Recently, you made me also love huge numbers. They are also highly cool and lovely. And I am really enthusiastic and curious whether$$2 \uparrow \uparrow 4 + 3\uparrow \uparrow 4 = 2^{2^{2^2}} + 3^{3^{3^3}}$$ is prime or not. – Mahmoud albahar Aug 29 '23 at 14:35
  • 1
    Thank you that you appreciate my contributions. In fact, I love huge numbers and this old record could probably easily be beaten but the interest was probably small. The number you mentioned in the last comment is in fact very interesting. Too huge for a direct primality test , probably composite but it is very very hard to find a nontrivial factor. An old, but one of my favourite problems someone found independent of me. – Peter Aug 29 '23 at 14:39
  • @Peter: In your opinion, do mathematicians have the ability of finding out in the few upcoming years whether$$2 \uparrow \uparrow 4 + 3\uparrow \uparrow 4 = 2^{2^{2^2}} + 3^{3^{3^3}}$$ is prime or not?

    I also remember that it is not yet proven whether $\pi^{\pi^{\pi^{\pi}}}$ is an integer or not. (I believe it is not integer)

    – Mahmoud albahar Aug 29 '23 at 14:45
  • @Peter: One thing that makes me sad about studying mathematics is that there are many highly interesting problems that are unsolved. The sad part is that I am eager to know the answers. – Mahmoud albahar Aug 29 '23 at 14:49
  • @Peter: I mean there are highly interesting things in mathematics that are still unknown. I am talking about the solutions to the problems that have not yet been solved. – Mahmoud albahar Aug 29 '23 at 14:51
  • What makes this problem interesting , is that $2\uparrow \uparrow n + 3\uparrow \uparrow n$ is composite for every $n>4$ and $2^{2^2}+3^{3^3}$ , $2^2+3^3$ , $2+3$ are all prime. – Peter Aug 29 '23 at 15:06