Comprehending Large Numbers

Join us for a public lecture from Senior Lecturer Ian Le (Australian National University). Light refreshments will be served afterwards.

Abstract:

What is the largest number you can think of? By the end of this lecture, you’ll be able to think of numbers far larger than any you’ve thought of before. We will take a journey through mathematics and encounter some of the largest numbers mathematicians have contemplated. At first, you might not think there's much substantive mathematics behind enormous numbers. But the problem of how to precisely write down a very large number raises deep questions. We will enter the realm of metamathematics–recursion, computability, complexity–and discover that the question of largeness offers us a way to probe the limits of mathematical understanding.