What's the biggest number you can create with three 3's?

[ssj5harsh]

I know this is old, but let's see how many fall for it here.

a) What is the largest number you can make using three 9's?

b) What is the largest number you can make using three 3's?

Operations allowed are addition, subtaction, multiplication, division and exponentiation.

 

[mattmns]

Hmm, maybe:
9^(9^9)
3^(3^3)

?

 

[RandallB]

Maybe :

. 3 / (3-3)

ssj
Figured with your comment " how many fall for it "
there must be a trick - was this it??

 

[nnnnnnnn]

or maybe:
99900000...
or something along those lines.

How do I make it invisible?

 

[LarrrSDonald]

None of the pre-set colors match the new skin, but if you use e9e9e9 it'll be invisible. I.e. <bracket>color="#e9e9e9"<bracket> Text <bracket>/color<bracket> (not sure how to make a bracket actually show up instead of being interpreted). Demo: Invisible text

 

[RandallB]

new white out code

See 11-15-2005 post in "sticky thread" at top of Brain teaser forum

for new white out code to macth new skin.
Testing here for e9e9e9 maybe it works too
Test of e9 above -- either black or e9e9e9 seems work ok

 

[ssj5harsh]

I see you fell for it

a) The answer is 9^(9^9).

b) The answer is 3^33. You should see that this is greater than 3^(3^3), which is 3^27.

That was the trick.

As far as I know 3/(3-3) is not defined as 3/0 is not defined, since the left hand and right hand limits are not equal.

 

[LarrrSDonald]

Sorry about not seeing the sticky at the time. I picked e9e9e9 by simply checking what the background rendered to, though with color profiles, websafeness and what not it may well be something else when it starts out (I just hit printscreen, tabbed over to photoshop, pasted in a screenshot and looked) and/or be rendered as something else elsewhere. Not like 4/256 shade diff is going to kill anyone anyhow :-).

 

[Alkatran]

I see you fell for it
a) The answer is 9^(9^9).
b) The answer is 3^33. You should see that this is greater than 3^(3^3), which is 3^27.
That was the trick.
As far as I know 3/(3-3) is not defined as 3/0 is not defined, since the left hand and right hand limits are not equal.

I'm sorry, how did you get 33 from two 3s when all you can do is add, divide, multiply, subtract, and exponentiate? I call BS. You should have listed concatenate.

(Although I did go over a few different ways fo fitting 9s together to get weird shapes...)

 

[Galileo]

Rotate one 3 over 90 deg and the other one over -90 deg and stick them on top of each other to make $\infty$.

 

[croxbearer]

so it means we only need two 3's instead of three?

 

[ceptimus]

You could use the other one to make

$$3^\infty$$

 

[LarrrSDonald]

My bid is:
$$\omega^{\omega^\omega}$$
Though my grasp of transfinite numbers is shakey at best, I think it's bigger then "infinity" (i.e. plain omega) and 3^infinity :-).