Happiest of birthdays to Wu!

Have shiny, happy fun today.

locked

3045 views

- No text -

locked

2828 views

- No text -

locked

2741 views

He sure seems to have a lot of those lately ;)

Happy birthday Claude! All the best.

locked

2894 views

Well... The one constant through all the years, Cruel, has been ~~baseball~~ Claude's birthday. :)

locked

2891 views

He sure seems to have a lot of those lately ;)

ZOMG HE IS SO OLD.

locked

2851 views

I think he has more birthdays than anyone else.

;-)

Happy Birthday, Claude! Hope you have a grand time!

locked

2795 views

- No text -

locked

2758 views

I didn't get you anything.

locked

2858 views

NSFW

Happy birthday!

locked

2907 views

[image]
;)

locked

2814 views

- No text -

locked

2819 views

- No text -

locked

2757 views

Knuth's up-arrow notation can just about handle Wu's age. =P

locked

2830 views

I never got far enough in math to learn this stuff on my own. I was briefly introduced to that once by a math grass student in a physics class. My question that he couldn't answer, and that I can't answer myself after checking the wikipedia page, is why not just use exponents?

locked

2755 views

I never got far enough in math to learn this stuff on my own. I was briefly introduced to that once by a math grass student in a physics class. My question that he couldn't answer, and that I can't answer myself after checking the wikipedia page, is why not just use exponents?

I'm not sure myself. I think it might have a lot to do with computing, since Donald Knuth is a computer scientist and specialized in computational algorithms. Or it might simply be more intuitive to read or type with a keyboard.

Once you understand the system, 3(Arrow)(Arrow)4 is a lot easier to grasp than 3^7625597484987.

locked

2732 views

I never got far enough in math to learn this stuff on my own. I was briefly introduced to that once by a math grass student in a physics class. My question that he couldn't answer, and that I can't answer myself after checking the wikipedia page, is why not just use exponents?

I'm not sure myself. I think it might have a lot to do with computing, since Donald Knuth is a computer scientist and specialized in computational algorithms. Or it might simply be more intuitive to read or type with a keyboard.

Once you understand the system, 3(Arrow)(Arrow)4 is a lot easier to grasp than 3^7625597484987.

Yeah, but surely it's identical to just saying 3^3^3^3.

That said, I just read the article again for about 15 minutes. The utility appears to be when that second number increases. For example, 3 arrow arrow arrow arrow arrow 76.

I don't like mathematics with no applicability to physics, and with the number of atoms being approximately 10^80, I saw no utility in the notation.

Do computers use numbers this large very often?

locked

2787 views

Computers can only handle mathematical operations up to a point (and even before that point, there are big limitations in how large one operator is compared to the other).

I mean, you can certainly visualize larger numbers at will, but the computer won't do anything with it.

locked

2760 views

Computers can only handle mathematical operations up to a point

I mean, you can certainly visualize larger numbers at will, but the computer won't do anything with it.

There's nothing in particular preventing you from representing huge numbers on a computer. Such representations couldn't be used "natively" in the execution units, but it's not like the human brain has streamlined up-arrow registers and execution pipelines either.

Speed is a potential issue if you're going reeeaaaaallllyyyy big and need an exact answer, but with billions of 64-bit ops per second available, you can get a decent amount of work done in reasonable time.

(and even before that point, there are big limitations in how large one operator is compared to the other).

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to here.

locked

2773 views

There's nothing in particular preventing you from representing huge numbers on a computer. Such representations couldn't be used "natively" in the execution units, but it's not like the human brain has streamlined up-arrow registers and execution pipelines either.

That's what I meant.

Speed is a potential issue if you're going reeeaaaaallllyyyy big and need an exact answer, but with billions of 64-bit ops per second available, you can get a decent amount of work done in reasonable time.

And that is the long answer. :p

(and even before that point, there are big limitations in how large one operator is compared to the other).

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to here.

Was talking about how you can't sum 2e63 with 2e-63 and have the answer in a single byte without losing precision, even when the system is capable of storing up to 2e63 and down to 2e-63.

locked

2778 views

Was talking about how you can't sum 2e63 with 2e-63 and have the answer in a single byte without losing precision, even when the system is capable of storing up to 2e63 and down to 2e-63.

RIP mantissa D:

locked

2733 views

I never got far enough in math to learn this stuff on my own. I was briefly introduced to that once by a math grass student in a physics class. My question that he couldn't answer, and that I can't answer myself after checking the wikipedia page, is why not just use exponents?

Certain numbers, like Graham's number, are too big to even be represented with exponents.

locked

2763 views

- No text -

locked

2746 views

Pretty soon you'll have the age pre-requisite met to take his job!

Happy Birthday Mr. Claude.

locked

2740 views

Well, except for people who make age jokes.

Oh, wait, that was ALL OF YOU

(Been a good day. :) Far from home, on the east coast… coming to an end... )

locked

2848 views

Oops.

locked

2743 views

How much do you want to bet that P.A. message won't go off at all? ;-)

locked

2762 views

I heard your birthday message in the tower about a week ago. I'm just wondering when I'm gonna hear mine.

Happy B-day Claude. Thanks for setting all this up over the years.

locked

2756 views

Since Mig posted the thing already, I figured I'm now safe to post our contribution separately.

Happy Birthday, Claude!

locked

2954 views

"I wish I was my titan."

Great video.

locked

2789 views

- No text -

locked

2699 views

So the announcement in the tower is actually correct for once. Happy bday!

locked

2754 views

This really should be archived. Cool to see all the peeps!

locked

2867 views

- No text -

locked

2746 views

In case ppl were wondering why there was a random guy holding a tuba in the vid:

locked

2896 views

Oh, man! That's awesome.

Can you do the rest of the song? :D

locked

2791 views

Hope you had a good one, big guy

locked

2795 views

Wow, thanks to Nico, my 91 year old father got to say happy birthday too!

(For all you youngsters out there, he's the voice of the surly dwarf, and we just watched the Seahawks beat the 49's yesterday!)

locked

2829 views

- No text -

locked

2729 views

Wow, thanks to Nico, my 91 year old father got to say happy birthday too!

(For all you youngsters out there, he's the voice of the surly dwarf, and we just watched the Seahawks beat the 49's yesterday!)

Spectacular.

locked

2730 views

- No text -

locked

2689 views

- No text -

locked

2728 views

Louis Wu is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life

locked

2733 views

[image]

locked

2752 views

- No text -

locked

2728 views

This happened:

[image]

Still, happy belated birthday.

locked

2682 views

Back to the forum index

RSS Feed of thread

DBO Forums

Happiest of birthdays to Wu! (DBO)

Happy BDay!

Happy birthday!

Its Claude's birthday again?!

Its Claude's birthday again?!

Its Claude's birthday again?!

I know, right?

Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday.

Another birthday song.

Didn't think it was possible.Do numbers really go that high?

Only until Bungie nerfs Claude's age.

They'd have to bring Zero up to 35 to even it out.

Theoretically, yes.

Math question

Math question

Math question

Short answer is no, AFAIK

Short answer is no, AFAIK

Short answer is no, AFAIK

Short answer is no, AFAIK

Math question

Math is weird.

The grim reaper stares on in disbelief

Thanks to everyone!

Hey I didn't old man!

Happy Birthday, Claude!