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scott wrote:
> Next task, give us some indication of how big n is :-)
I can see I won't get much work done today...
OK, well we have
d = λ n → n 2
c = λ n → n 2^n
b = λ n → c@n n
a = λ n → b@n n
where "b@n" means "b applied n times".
If n = 100, then 2^n ≈ 10^30, while is a mere 10^2 times larger. As n
becomes larger, the difference becomes more and more insignificant. So,
we can approximate with
c = λ n → 2^n
On that bases, the final result is guaranteed to be an exact power of 2.
We just need to figure out which one.
Using Knuth's "up-arrow notation", we have
c = λ n → 2↑n
b = λ n → 2↑↑n
a = λ n → 2↑↑↑n
So the answer we seek is (approximately) 2↑↑↑2. In other words, the
pentation of 2 with 2. Unfortunately, I don't know of any efficient way
to compute the size of this ludicrously massive quantity.
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