Are you alluding to Scott Aaronson's essay on Who Can Name the Bigger Number? [1... | Hacker News

Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit

		vecter on May 7, 2012 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Timeline of the far future Are you alluding to Scott Aaronson's essay on Who Can Name the Bigger Number? [1] [1] http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html

platz on May 7, 2012 | [–]

Yep!! The point is, if you say 'Take however many symbols it takes you to describe your large number', that's not well-defined and is fundamentally ambiguous due to the nature of language.

dasil003 on May 7, 2012 | [–]

Of course the whole large number pissing contest is extremely ageist.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact