Math question (DBO)

by Funkmon , Sunday, November 22, 2015, 19:40 (3295 days ago) @ Quirel

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?