PIE

A New Very Large Number

and Musings on Infinity
by Bradley Walker April 15, 2015

This paper is about very large numbers (VLNs) in the sense of numbers that are significantly
larger than those ordinarily used in everyday life, like in simple counting or in monetary
transactions. VLNs often occur in fields such as mathematics, cosmology, cryptography, etc.
Sometimes people refer to numbers as being "astronomically large"; however, it is easy to
mathematically define numbers that are much larger even than those used in astronomy

Examples of VLNs (approximate) describable in simple terms:

10 8 number of possible Mega Millions lottery (6-balls) number combinations
10 9 number of humans living in India or China
10 9 number of base pairs in the human DNA genome
10 10 number of humans living on Earth
10 10 number of bacteria in the human mouth
10 10 age of the Universe in years (as per Big Bang model)
10 11 number of total Homo-sapiens that have ever lived on Earth
10 11 number of neurons in the human brain
10 11 number of base pairs in DNA genome of the most complex plants / animals
10 11 speed of light in a vacuum, in millimeters-per-second.
10 11 distance across observable Universe in light-years
10 11 number of galaxies in the observable Universe
10 11 number of unique web pages indexed by Google
10 12 number of stars in the average galaxy
10 13 number of currently-known digits of e
10 13 number of bacteria on the surface of the human body
10 13 distance of a light-year, in kilometers / miles
10 13 distance to nearest star Alpha Centauri, in kilometers / miles
10 13 number of currently-known digits of (Pi)
10 13 amount of the national debt of the United States, in dollars
10 13 number of bits on a computer hard disk
10 14 number of cells in the human body
10 14 number of neuronal connections in the human brain
10 14 mass of average mountain on Earth, in kilograms

10 14 age of the Universe in hours (as per Big Bang model)

10 15 number of synapses in the human brain
10 16 number of ants on Earth alive at any one time
10 16 time for Solar System to orbit Milky Way Galaxy, in seconds
10 16 distance to nearest star Alpha Centauri, in meters / feet
10 16 distance of a light-year, in meters / feet
10 17 age of the Universe in seconds (as per Big Bang model)
10 19 number of insects on Earth alive at any one time
10 19 distance to supergiant star Betelgeuse, in meters / feet
10 19 distance to Andromeda Galaxy (nearest major galaxy), in km / miles
10 19 distance of a light-year, in millimeters
10 19 mass of average asteroid, in kilograms
10 19 answer to the wheat and chessboard problem = 264
10 19 number of different positions of a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube
10 19 number of ways to enter the NCAA March Madness 68-team bracket
10 19 number of computer transistors produced worldwide in 2008
10 20 age of the Universe in milliseconds (as per Big Bang model)
10 20 distance to center of Milky Way Galaxy, in meters / feet
10 21 number of total grains of sand on Earths beaches
10 21 mass of Earths oceans, in kilograms
10 21 number of computer transistors currently existing worldwide
10 22 number of possible 99 Sudoku grids
10 23 mass of the Moon, in kilograms
10 23 number of stars in the observable Universe
10 24 distance across observable Universe in kilometers / miles
10 24 number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12, Avogadro constant
10 25 mass of the Earth, in kilograms
10 27 mass of Jupiter, in kilograms
10 27 distance across observable Universe in meters / feet
10 28 number of atoms in the human body

10 28 number of unique hands in 10-player game of Texas Hold'em Poker

10 28 number of possible legal positions in Reversi / Othello
10 30 mass of the Sun, in kilograms
10 30 distance across observable Universe in millimeters
10 31 number of bacterial cells on Earth
10 36 ratio of the electromagnetic to the gravitational forces between two protons
10 38 number of Internet addresses creatable under the IPv6 addressing system
10 38 number of different possible encryption-keys in the AES 128-bit key space
10 41 the least common multiple of every integer from 1 to 100
10 42 a bajillion, which is among the Holiest of numbers
10 46 number of different positions of a 4x4x4 Rubik's Revenge Cube
10 47 number of possible legal positions in chess
10 53 mass (of ordinary matter) of the observable Universe, in kilograms
10 58 number of possible unique complete games of Reversi / Othello
10 58 number of different possible encryption-keys in the AES 192-bit key space
10 61 age of the Universe in Planck-time-intervals (as per Big Bang model)
10 68 number of ways to order the cards in a 52-card deck
10 74 number of different positions of a 5x5x5 Rubik's Professors Cube
10 77 number of different possible encryption-keys in the AES 256-bit key space
10 80 number of atoms in the observable Universe
10 83 volume of the observable Universe, in liters
10 96 number of total combinations of 40-character passwords
10 100 a googol, term coined in 1920 by mathematician Edward Kasner
10 100 decay time in years for a supermassive black-hole of roughly 1 galaxy-mass
10 116 number of different positions of a 6x6x6 Rubik's V-Cube-6
10 123 number of possible unique complete games of chess
10 160 number of different positions of a 7x7x7 Rubik's V-Cube-7
10 181 number of ways to arrange the tiles in English Scrabble on a 15x15 board
10 185 number of Planck-volumes in the observable Universe
10 365 number of possible unique complete games of Go

Now that weve listed most of the VLNs which are describable in simple terms, we can begin to
talk about even larger numbers and the approach towards infinity
10 365 (a 1 followed by 365 0s) is a large enough number to express the age of the Universe in
the smallest time-units we have, to express the size of the Universe in the smallest distance-units
we have, and to express the total possible permutations of the most complex games and encryption
algorithms that humans have invented to date. Therefore, most people will certainly never have a
need for any numbers larger than that, and likely will never even SEE any numbers larger than
that.
However, there are infinitely-many numbers larger than 10 365, and they can get so large that they
make 10 365 look microscopic by comparison

One such example is Graham's number, named after Ronald Graham, which is an upper bound
on the solution to the following problem in Ramsey theory:
Connect each pair of geometric vertices of an n-dimensional hypercube to obtain a
complete graph on 2n vertices. Color each of the edges of this graph either red or blue.
What is the smallest value of n for which EVERY such coloring contains at least one singlecolored complete subgraph on four coplanar vertices?
Graham's number gained a degree of popular attention when Martin Gardner described it in the
"Mathematical Games" section of Scientific American in November 1977, writing that Graham
had recently established, in an unpublished proof, "a bound so vast that it holds the record for the
largest number ever used in a serious mathematical proof." The 1980 Guinness Book of World
Records repeated Gardner's claim, adding to the popular interest in this number.
Graham's number is MUCH larger than many other VLNs such as a googol (10 100), a
googolplex (10 googol), Skewes' number and Moser's number. Indeed, like the last two of
those numbers, the entire observable Universe is still far too small to contain an ordinary digital
representation of Graham's number, even if each digit occupied only one Planck-volume. Even
power towers of the form [a^b^c^d^] are insufficient for this purpose.
In fact, the magnitude of just the VERY FIRST SMALLEST TERM, g1, is so incomprehensibly
large that even the mere number of towers in the formula for g1 is far greater than the number of
Planck-volumes in the observable Universe!! And after this first term, still another 63 terms remain
in the rapidly-growing g-sequence before Graham's number G = g64 is reached!!!
Ronald Graham himself admits that he has no idea how many digits are in his number, or even
what the first digit is. (The last 12 digits of his number are ...262464195387, but that bit of
information doesnt actually help with anything.)
Graham's number, Kruskal's TREE(3) number, Skewes' number, Moser's number,
googolplexplex, and other incomprehensibly large numbers need to be expressed in abstract
notations, such as: tetration hyper-4 iterated exponentiation, Knuth's up-arrow notation,
Conway chained-arrow notation, Ackermann functions, etc.

NOTE: I do not pretend to understand any of the terms used in the previous sentence. I humbly
admit that those types of mathematics are FAR beyond my abilities. The whole point of writing
this paper is that I wanted to be able to create a VLN that can be expressed in simple words and
familiar concepts, rather than in complex abstract notation systems. Which brings me to PIE

I have always been fascinated by the concept of infinity, in both direct and indirect ways. This
includes childhood hobbies of stargazing, playing chess and Othello, solving Rubiks Cubes, etc.
In my sophomore year of high-school, my math teacher, Mr. Thomas Bartling, introduced himself
to us by showing off, in the form of writing 50 digits of (Pi) on the chalkboard then turning
around and reciting them verbally from memory. I dont think most of the students really cared
that much, but I found it to be impressive, and I wanted to see if I could do better. So I went home
that weekend, printed out 1,000 digits of Pi, and started memorizing When I returned to class
on Monday, I went up to the chalkboard and wrote out 100+ digits then recited them. I continued
memorizing digits over the next few weeks, and eventually could recite 500+ from memory.
Ever since then, I have had a deep fascination with Pi. This includes giving Mr. Bartling a gift in
the form of a coaster for his coffee mug made of 100 colored beads representing the first 100 digits
of Pi, choosing an email address for myself which was [the first 32 digits of Pi] @Yahoo, my
girlfriend and I sending eachother Pi texts at 3:14pm every day, celebrating Pi Day every year
on March 14th, getting the Pi symbol tattooed on my arm (as part of my geek collage), and even
waiting to purposely get married on The Ultimate Pi Day of 3/14/15 at 9:26pm.
For those who dont know, the number Pi, represented by the Greek letter "" since the mid-18th
century, is a mathematical constant. It is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The
first 50 decimal digits of Pi are 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510...
Pi is an irrational number (proven by Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1761) and also a transcendental
number (proven by Ferdinand von Lindemann in 1882), so its decimal representation never ends
and never settles into a permanent repeating pattern. (The digits appear to be randomly distributed;
however, to date, no proof of this has been discovered.) In recent decades, mathematicians and
computer scientists discovered new approaches that, when combined with increasing
computational power, have greatly extended the decimal representation of Pi to over 13.3-trillion
(10 13) known digits. Scientific applications generally require no more than 40 digits of Pi, so the
primary motivation for these computations is simply the human desire to break records. However,
the extensive calculations involved have been used to test supercomputers and high-precision
multiplication algorithms. In Carl Sagan's novel Contact, it is suggested that the Creator of the
Universe buried a sacred message deep within the digits of Pi

Another important mathematical constant is the number e (hereinafter written as capital E for
easier noticeability in the text), sometimes called Euler's number after the Swiss mathematician
Leonhard Euler. It is the base of the natural-logarithm. It is the limit of (1+1/n)n as n approaches
infinity, an expression that arises in the study of compound interest. The first 50 decimal digits of
E are 2.71828182845904523536028747135266249775724709369995...
The discovery of E is credited to Jacob Bernoulli in 1690. E is an irrational number (proven by
Euler in 1737, and later proven differently by Joseph Fourier) and also a transcendental number
(proven by Charles Hermite in 1873), so its decimal representation never ends and never settles
into a permanent repeating pattern. In recent decades, mathematicians and computer scientists
discovered new approaches that, when combined with increasing computational power, have
greatly extended the decimal representation of E to over one-trillion (10 12) known digits.

At first glance, Pi and E seem entirely unrelated to eachother. However, Leonhard Euler
discovered a mind-blowing relationship that is now known as Euler's identity: [e i +1 = 0]
It has been called "the most remarkable formula in mathematics" by Richard P. Feynman. In 1988,
readers of the Mathematical Intelligencer voted it "the Most Beautiful Mathematical Formula
Ever". (Impressively, Euler was responsible for three of the top-five formulae in that poll.)

So, now that we have become more familiar with the constants Pi and E, and we have seen that
they can work harmoniously together, I would like to suggest an interesting new use for these
ancient, sacred numbers

Most people dont use the constants Pi or E in their daily lives at all. Many people have never even
heard of those terms. The few people who do use those constants, are probably familiar with using
a calculator, and almost every calculator already has buttons for these 2 constants. Finally, even if
a rare person wanted / needed to know these numbers, they would probably learn them as
3.1415926535 and 2.718281828, since those truncated numbers are close enough to the actual
constants, being within one-billionth of the true value.
The reason nobody cares too much about the bajillions (1042s) of digits after the first dozen-or-so
digits of Pi and E, is that the extra digits begin to make less and less difference towards the overall
number, and they become somewhat irrelevant as they *converge* towards a single point. Nobody
really cares what the 768th digit of Pi is, (its 9) because when would you ever need to be accurate
to that many digits?? Clearly, 3.1416 is close enough. Right?
Well, heres where we can make things much more interesting. The Universe gifted us with these
magical sacred numbers of Pi and E, and I believe there can be more ways that we are meant to
use them. I propose that we can simply remove the decimal point from each of these constants,
and finally use them as the truly powerful, infinitely large numbers that they are!!

Please allow me to explain

First, we will treat pi and e as normal decimal constants, and multiply them together. (See table
below) The more digits we enter for our irrational & transcendental numbers, the more accurate
the resulting product gets. However, as you can see, the product converges fairly quickly towards
the true result, making additional digits somewhat unnecessary... When used as normal decimal
constants, [pi x e] has an obvious single answer.
3.14
3.1415
3.141592
3.14159265
3.1415926535
3.141592653589
3.14159265358979
pi

x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x

2.71
2.7182
2.718281
2.71828182
2.7182818284
2.718281828459
2.71828182845904
e

=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=

8.5094
8.5392253
8.539729843
8.53973418634062
8.53973422224399
8.53973422267127
8.53973422267354
8.53973422267356

However, if we simply remove those tiny little decimal-points in pi and e, and treat them as
increasingly-larger integers named PI and E, then things get much more interesting (See
table below) I think of this process as [PI x E = PIE] Now, the number of digits we enter for
our irrational & transcendental constants actually alters how large the numbers are, and creates
entirely different multiplication problems. So, instead of getting a decimal product that
*converges* towards a single point, where extra digits simply mean more accurate and can
eventually be ignored, this new PIE number actually *diverges* exponentially towards
Infinity!! This means the number of digits and the sizes of the numbers need to be taken quite
seriously!!
3
31
314
31,415
3,141,592
314,159,265
31,415,926,535
3,141,592,653,589
314,159,265,358,979
PI

x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x

2
27
271
27,182
2,718,281
271,828,182
27,182,818,284
2,718,281,828,459
271,828,182,845,904
E

=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=

6
837
85,094
853,922,530
8,539,729,843,352
85,397,341,863,406,200
853,973,422,224,399,000,000
8,539,734,222,671,270,000,000,000
85,397,342,226,735,400,000,000,000,000
PIE ??

Also, now that we are removing the decimal points and treating these as various-sized integers,
the resulting product does not even necessarily have any set pattern of digits!!
In the example table above, the PI and E columns always had an equal number of digits,
which is why the product column *appears* to converge in the same way as the real [pi x e]
result (ignoring magnitude). But we are not required to use an equal number of digits!! We can
use however many we choose (See table below)
3
31
31
31,415
31,415
31,415,926
31,415,926,535
3,141,592,653,589
PI

x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x

27
271
27,182
2,718,281
271,828,182
27,182,818,284
2,718
2,718,281
E

=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=

81
8,401
842,642
85,394,797,615
8,539,482,337,530
853,973,407,681,591,000
85,388,488,322,130
8,539,731,619,990,560,000
PIE ??

Therefore, this new PIE number has many interesting properties to discuss

First, lets choose (alpha) to represent the # of digits of pi that we enter for PI, and (beta) to
represent the # of digits of e that we enter for E, and then [+ -1 = ] where (gamma) gives us
the # of digits of the resulting product [PI x E = PIE]. If we place these # of digits values as
subscripts, then we get the more accurate / helpful / interesting equation: [PI x E = PIE]
Since we know that pi and e are irrational & transcendental numbers, we can say that the domain
of possible reasonable values for and (the # of digits from pi and e that we choose to enter as
PI and E) as the counting numbers from one to Infinity, in proper notation as: { N | 1}
Therefore, the domain of , calculated from [+ -1], is also the counting numbers from one to
Infinity, in proper notation as: { N | 1}
So the lowest possible value of PIE occurs when [=1, =1, =1] for [3 x 2 = 6]. The next
lowest possible value of PIE occurs when [=2, =1, =2] for [31 x 2 = 62]. This is followed by
[=1, =2, =2] for [3 x 27 = 81].

but what *other* values of PIE are possible?? How many unique values of PIE are possible??
Is there an equation that would check whether a given number is in the set of PIE values or not??
Is the maximum bound of PIE finite or Infinite?? Would it be Countably Infinite or Uncountably
Infinite?? What would be the cardinality of its Infinite-ness??

TO BE CONTINUED.