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Arrow Notation
Anotation invented by Knuth (1976) to represent large numbers in which evaluation proceeds from the right (Conway and Guy 1996, p. 60):

THINGS TO TRY: Ackermann(2, 2) Ackermann(5, 2) Ackermann(8, 8)

For example, (1) (2) (3) (4)

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13,109 entries Last updated: Thu Apr 26 2012

(5) (6) (7) (8)

Created, developed, and nurtured by Eric W eisstein at W olfram Research

is sometimes called a power tower. The values

are called Ackermann numbers.

SEE ALSO:

Ackermann Number, Chained Arrow Notation, Down Arrow Notation, Large Number, Power Tower, Steinhaus-Moser Notation
REFERENCES: Conway, J. H. and Guy, R. K. The Book of Numbers. New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 59-62, 1996. Guy, R. K. and Selfridge, J. L. "The Nesting and Roosting Habits of the Laddered Parenthesis." Amer. Math. Monthly 80, 868-876, 1973. Knuth, D. E. "Mathematics and Computer Science: Coping with Finiteness. Advances in Our Ability to Compute are Bringing Us Substantially Closer to Ultimate Limitations." Science 194, 1235-1242, 1976. Vardi, I. Computational Recreations in Mathematica. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley, pp. 11 and 226-229, 1991.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha: Arrow Notation

CITE THIS AS: Weisstein, Eric W. "Arrow Notation." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ArrowNotation.html

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