Orders of magnitude (numbers)

This list shows selected positive numbers arranged from the smallest to the largest. It includes counts of things, numbers without units, and chances of events happening. Each number is given a special name using two different systems: the short scale, used in English-speaking countries, and the long scale, used in some countries where English is not the main language. Understanding these numbers helps us grasp just how tiny or huge different things can be, from the number of atoms in a drop of water to the distance between stars.

Smaller than 10⁻¹⁰⁰ (one googolth)

Some very small numbers are used in math and computing. In math, the difference between certain special numbers can be incredibly tiny. For example, the chance that a typing robot could randomly type out the whole play of Hamlet by Shakespeare on its first try is about 10^−183800.

In computing, different systems can show very small numbers in different ways. Some of the tiniest numbers a computer can show are around 10⁻⁷⁸⁹⁸⁴ in special number formats. These tiny numbers help scientists and engineers work with very small amounts in their calculations.

10⁻¹⁰⁰ to 10⁻³⁰

• Computing: 1×10⁻⁹⁵ is the smallest positive normal number that can be shown by a single-precision IEEE decimal floating-point value.
• Mathematics: ⁠1/52!⁠ ≈ 1.24×10⁻⁶⁸ is the chance of shuffling a standard 52-card deck in a specific order.
• Computing: 2⁻¹⁴⁹ ≈ 1.4012985×10⁻⁴⁵ is the smallest positive non-zero value that can be shown by a single-precision IEEE floating-point value.
• Computing: 2⁻¹²⁶ ≈ 1.1754944×10⁻³⁸ is the smallest positive normal number that can be shown by a single-precision IEEE floating-point value.

10⁻³⁰

(0.000000000000000000000000000001; 1000⁻¹⁰; short scale: one nonillionth; long scale: one quintillionth)

ISO: quecto- (q)

• Mathematics: In a game of bridge, there is a very small chance—about 4.47×10⁻²⁸—that each of the four players gets all of the cards of one suit. This is calculated using a special math formula.

10⁻²⁷

This number is very, very small — it is 0.000000000000000000000000001. In the short scale, used in English-speaking countries, it is called one octillionth. In the long scale, used in some other countries, it is called one quadrilliardth. The ISO symbol for this amount is ronto-, written as "r".

10⁻²⁴

This number is very, very small — it's 0.000000000000000000000001. In the short scale, used in English-speaking countries, it's called one septillionth. In the long scale, used in some other countries, it's called one quadrillionth. The ISO prefix for this number is yocto, written as "y".

10⁻²¹

(0.000000000000000000001; 1000⁻⁷; short scale: one sextillionth; long scale: one trilliardth)

ISO: zepto- (z)

• Mathematics: The chance of matching 20 numbers for 20 in a game of keno is very small.
• Mathematics: Trying to guess every winner in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament by chance, like flipping a coin, is also very unlikely.

10⁻¹⁸

(0.000000000000000001; 1000⁻⁶; short scale: one quintillionth; long scale: one trillionth)

ISO: atto- (a)

• Mathematics: 36⁻¹⁰ ≈ 2.74×10⁻¹⁶ is the chance of rolling snake eyes 10 times in a row with two fair dice.

10⁻¹⁵

(0.000000000000001; 1000⁻⁵; short scale: one quadrillionth; long scale: one billiardth)

ISO: femto- (f)

• Mathematics: The Ramanujan constant, e π 163 ≈ 262 537 412 640 768 743.999 999 999 999 25 … , is an almost integer, very close to a whole number.

10⁻¹²

(0.000000000001; 1000⁻⁴; short scale: one trillionth; long scale: one billionth)

ISO: pico- (p)

• Mathematics: In a game of bridge, there is a very small chance—about 2.52×10⁻¹¹—that one player will get all the cards of one suit.
• Biology: People can barely see light of 1000 nm wavelength. This sensitivity is around 1.0×10⁻¹⁰ of the best sensitivity at 555 nm light.

10⁻⁹

(0.000000001; 1000⁻³; short scale: one billionth; long scale: one milliardth)

ISO: nano- (n)

• Mathematics – Lottery: The chance of winning the top prize (matching all 6 numbers) in the US Powerball lottery, with one ticket, as of October 2015, is very small, about 3.422×10⁻⁹.
• Mathematics – Lottery: The chance of winning the top prize (matching all 6 numbers) in the Australian Powerball lottery, with one ticket, as of April 2018, is also very small, about 7.435×10⁻⁹.
• Mathematics – Lottery: The chance of winning the biggest prize (matching the 6 main numbers) in the UK National Lottery Lotto, with one ticket, as of December 2024, is about 2.219×10⁻⁸.
• Computing: 2⁻²⁴ ≈ 5.960×10⁻⁸ is the smallest positive number that can be shown using a half-precision computer number format.
• Mathematics – Lottery: The chance of winning the biggest prize (matching the 6 main numbers) in the older 49-ball UK National Lottery, with one ticket, was about 7.151×10⁻⁸.

10⁻⁶

(0.000001; 1000⁻²; long and short scales: one millionth)

ISO: micro- (μ)

• Mathematics – Poker: The chances of getting a special hand called a royal flush in poker are about 649,739 to 1, meaning it happens with a probability of around 1.5×10⁻⁶ (0.0015%).
• Mathematics – Poker: The chances of getting another special hand called a straight flush in poker are about 72,192 to 1, meaning it happens with a probability of around 1.4×10⁻⁵ (0.014%).
• Computing: 2⁻¹⁴ ≈ 6.104×10⁻⁵ is about the smallest positive number that can be shown using a special type of computer number called half-precision IEEE floating-point.
• Mathematics – Poker: The chances of getting four cards of the same number in poker are about 4,164 to 1, meaning it happens with a probability of around 2.4×10⁻⁴ (0.024%).

10⁻³

(0.001; 1000⁻¹; one thousandth)

ISO: milli- (m)

• Mathematics – Poker: The chances of getting certain hands in poker are very small. For example, the chance of getting a full house is about 1 in 700, which is a probability of around 0.14%.
• Mathematics – Poker: Similarly, the chance of getting a flush is about 1 in 508, which is around 0.19%.
• Mathematics – Poker: And the chance of getting a straight is about 1 in 254, which is around 0.39%.
• Physics: The fine-structure constant is a special number in physics that is about 0.007.

10⁻²

(0.01; one hundredth)

ISO: centi- (c)

Some fun facts about chances and probabilities! In the UK National Lottery back in 2003, if you bought one ticket, your chance of winning any prize was about 1.8% — that’s pretty small! In poker, getting three of the same number has about a 2.1% chance. For the Powerball lottery in 2015, your chance to win any prize with one ticket was around 4.02%. And in poker again, getting two pairs of the same numbers had about a 4.8% chance.

10⁻¹

(0.1; one tenth)

ISO: deci- (d)

• Legal history: 10% was often used as a tax in the past for income or produce; see tithe.
• Mathematics: ⁠1/3⁠ ≈ 0.333333333, which is the first Repeating number when using the method (1/n).
• Mathematics – Poker: The chance of getting only one pair in poker is about 5 to 2 against (2.37 to 1), with a probability of 0.42 (42%).
• Mathematics – Poker: The chance of getting no pair in poker is nearly 1 to 2, with a probability of 0.5 (50%).
• Mathematics: ln 2 ≈ 0.693147181

10⁰

The number one is special in many ways. In 2010, the village of Monowi in Nebraska, United States, had just one person living there. Many religions, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, believe in one god. In math, the number one is unique because it is the only natural number that is not prime or composite.

Computers use different ways to count. For example, regular computers use the binary system, which has two digits: 0 and 1. There are also interesting math facts about numbers close to one, like special values in computing and different types of roots and ratios.

10¹

The number 10 is important in many areas. For example, it is the population of Pesnopoy, a village in Bulgaria, in 2007. Humans have 10 digits on their hands and 10 toes on their feet. The decimal system, which we use for everyday counting, also uses 10 digits: 0 through 9.

In religion, there are the Ten Commandments. In music, there are 12 notes in the chromatic scale and 12 zodiac signs in astrology. The English alphabet has 26 letters. In geography, there are 50 U.S. states. A grand piano usually has 88 keys.

10²

(100; hundred)

ISO: hecto- (h)

• European history: Groups of 100 homesteads were used as a way to organize areas in Northern Europe and Great Britain (see Hundred (county division)).
• Music: There are 104 numbered symphonies by Franz Josef Haydn.
• Religion: The number 108 is important in Hinduism.
• Chemistry: As of 2016, scientists have discovered or created 118 chemical elements.
• Computing – Computational limit of an 8-bit CPU: The highest number an 8-bit computer can show is 127.
• Computing – ASCII: The ASCII system includes 128 different characters.
• Videogames: The first generation of Pokémon includes 151 different Pokémon.
• Phonology: The Taa language has around 130 to 164 different sounds.
• Political science: As of 2011, there were 193 countries that are members of the United Nations.
• Mathematics: The number 200 is special because changing just one digit will not make it a prime number.
• Computing: A GIF image can show up to 256 different colors.
• Mathematics: The number 257 is a type of special number called a Fermat prime.
• Computing – Unicode: There are 327 different groups of symbols in Unicode blocks as of Unicode 15.0 in 2022.
• Mathematics: 383 is another special type of number called a Woodall prime.
• Computing – HTTP: The HTTP status code 404 means a page cannot be found.
• Culture: The number 420 is linked to cannabis culture.
• Mathematics: The number 496 is a perfect number.
• Mathematics: 563 is the largest known Wilson prime.
• Music: The works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are listed up to number 626 in the Köchel catalogue.
• Religion: The number 666 is known as the number of the beast from the Book of Revelation.
• Demography: Vatican City is the smallest country by population, with about 800 people as of 2018.
• Communications: In the United States and Canada, 911 is the emergency telephone number.

10³

(1000; thousand)

ISO: kilo- (k)

• Scale: 1,000 – the scale factor of most metric prefixes.
• Computing: 1,024 – the number of bytes in a kibibyte, and bits in a kibibit.
• Videogames: There are 1,025 Pokémon up to the ninth and latest generation.
• Mathematics: 1,729 is the first number that can be written as the sum of two cubic numbers in two different ways. It is known as the Ramanujan number after G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan.
• Typesetting: 2,000–3,000 letters on a typical typed page of text.
• Mathematics: 2,520 is the least common multiple of every positive integer under (and including) 10.
• Demographics – Wealth: There are 2,781 billionaires worldwide as of April 2024^[update].
• Biology: the DNA of the simplest viruses has 3,000 base pairs.
• Linguistics: Estimates for the linguistic diversity of living human languages or dialects range between 5,000 and 10,000. (SIL Ethnologue in 2009 listed 6,909 known living languages.)
• Mathematics: 7! = 5,040 is a large factorial number.
• Culture: 5,040 is mentioned by Plato in the Laws as an important number for the city.
• Astronomy – Catalogues: There are 7,840 deep-sky objects in the NGC Catalogue from 1888.
• Mathematics: 8,128 is the fourth perfect number.
• Mathematics: 2¹³ − 1 = 8,191 is the fifth Mersenne prime.
• Lexicography: 8,674 unique words in the Hebrew Bible.

10⁴

(10000; ten thousand or a myriad)

• Biology: Each neuron in the human brain connects to about 10,000 others.
• Demography: The population of Tuvalu was 10,645 in 2017.
• Lexicography: There are 14,500 unique English words in the King James Version of the Bible.
• Mathematics: The number 15,511 is a special kind of number called a Motzkin prime.
• Zoology: Scientists know of around 17,500 different butterfly species.
• Language: There are between 20,000 and 40,000 different Chinese characters that people use.
• Biology: Every human has about 20,000 coding genes.
• Grammar: In the Cherokee language, a regular verb can have over 21,000 different forms.
• Computing – Computational limit of a 16-bit CPU: The largest number a certain type of computer processor can show is 32,767.
• Mathematics: There are 41,472 ways to arrange a puzzle called the Gear Cube.
• Computing – Unicode: The most characters in one group of symbols used in writing is 42,720.
• Aviation: Over 44,000 copies have been made of the Cessna 172, the most-made airplane ever.
• Computing: The biggest number a special type of computer number can show is 65,504.
• Computing – Fonts: A type of writing design can show up to 65,535 different symbols.
• Computing – Unicode: A group of writing symbols has 65,536 different places for symbols.
• Mathematics: The number 65,537 is a special kind of prime number.
• Memory: Someone has remembered the number π to 70,030 decimal places.
• Mathematics: The number 82,000 can be written in a special way in different number systems.
• Mathematics: The number 87,360 is a special kind of perfectly balanced number.

10⁵

(100000; one hundred thousand or a lakh).

• Biology – Strands of hair on a head: The average human head has about 100,000–150,000 strands of hair.
• Literature: approximately 100,000 verses (shlokas) in the Mahabharata.
• Demography: The population of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was 109,991 in 2012.
• Mathematics: 2¹⁷ − 1 = 131,071 is the sixth Mersenne prime. It is the largest nth Mersenne prime with n digits.
• Mathematics: There are 138,240 possible combinations on the Skewb Diamond.
• Computing – Unicode: 149,186 characters (including control characters) encoded in Unicode as of version 15.0 (2022).
• Literature: 267,000 words in James Joyce's Ulysses.
• Computing – Unicode: 293,168 code points assigned to a Unicode block as of Unicode 15.0.
• Language – English words: The New Oxford Dictionary of English contains about 360,000 definitions for English words.
• Mathematics: 380,000 – The approximate number of entries in The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences as of January 2025^[update].
• Biology – Plants: There are approximately 390,000 distinct plant species known, of which approximately 20% (or 78,000) are at risk of extinction.
• Biology – Flowers: There are approximately 400,000 distinct flower species on Earth.
• Mathematics: 2¹⁹ − 1 = 524,287 is the seventh Mersenne prime.
• Literature: 564,000 words in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
• Literature: 930,000 words in the King James Version of the Bible.
• Mathematics: There are 933,120 possible combinations on the Pyraminx.
• Computing – Unicode: There are 974,530 publicly-assignable code points (i.e., not surrogates, private-use code points, or noncharacters) in Unicode.

10⁶

(1000000; 1000²; long and short scales: one million)

ISO: mega- (M)

• Demography: The population of Riga, Latvia was over a million in 2004.
• Computing – UTF-8: There are over a million valid UTF-8 sequences.
• Computing – UTF-16/Unicode: There are over a million distinct values encodable in UTF-16.
• Ludology – Number of games: About 1.2 million video games have been created.
• Biology – Species: Around 1.4 million species have been named.
• Linguistics: The Archi language has over a million possible verb conjugations.
• Computing – UTF-8: Over two million possible UTF-8 sequences exist, though not all are used.
• Mathematics – Playing cards: There are over 2.5 million different 5-card poker hands.
• Mathematics: The Skewb puzzle has over three million possible positions.
• Mathematics – Rubik's Cube: The Pocket Cube (2×2×2 Rubik's Cube) has over three million combinations.
• Geography/Computing – Geographic places: There are millions of named places in databases around the world.
• Info – Web sites: The English Wikipedia has about 7.2 million articles.

10⁷

(10000000; a crore; long and short scales: ten million)

• Demography: The population of Haiti was about 10 million in 2010.
• Literature: The book Devta by Mohiuddin Nawab has over 11 million words, making it one of the longest stories ever written.
• Mathematics: 12,988,816 is the number of ways to arrange domino tilings on an 8×8 checkerboard.
• Computing: 16,777,216 different colors can be shown using the hex code system in HTML.
• Science Fiction: In Isaac Asimov’s Galactic Empire, there are 25 million inhabited planets in the year 22,500 CE.
• Demography: The population of Saudi Arabia was about 34.5 million in 2022.
• Demography: The population of Canada was about 37 million in 2021.
• Demographics – Oceania: The population of Oceania was about 44.5 million in 2021.
• Literature: Wikipedia has around 67 million articles in 361 languages as of May 2026.
• Demography: The population of the United Kingdom was about 66.9 million in 2021.
• Mathematics: 73,939,133 is the largest right-truncatable prime.
• Demography: The population of Germany was about 83.5 million in 2025.
• Mathematics: 87,539,319 is the third taxicab number.

10⁸

(100000000; long and short scales: one hundred million)

• Demography: The population of the Philippines was 100,981,437 in 2015.
• Internet – YouTube: The number of YouTube channels is estimated to be 113.9 million.
• Info – Books: The British Library holds more than 150 million items. The Library of Congress holds approximately 148 million items. See The Gutenberg Galaxy.
• Mathematics: The number of partitions of 100 is 190,569,292.
• Video gaming: As of 2020^[update], approximately 200 million copies of Minecraft (the most-sold video game in history) have been sold.
• Mathematics: More than 215,000,000 mathematical constants are collected on the Plouffe's Inverter as of 2010^[update].
• Mathematics: 275,305,224 is the number of 5×5 normal magic squares, not counting rotations and reflections. This result was found in 1973 by Richard Schroeppel.
• Demography: The population of the United States was 331,449,281 in 2020.
• Mathematics: 358,833,097 stellations of the rhombic triacontahedron.
• Mathematics: There are 406,425,600 possible combinations on the Rubik's Domino.
• Demographics – South America: The population of South America was 434,254,119 in 2021.
• Info – Web sites: As of November 2011^[update], the Netcraft web survey estimates that there are 525,998,433 (526 million) distinct websites.
• Mathematics: 2²⁹ = 536,870,912 is the largest power of two with distinct digits.
• Demographics – North America: The population of North America was 592,296,233 in 2021.
• Demographics – Europe: The population of Europe was 745,173,774 in 2021.
• Toys – Lego: Six bricks of 2 × 4 Lego studs can be combined in 915,103,765 ways.
• Astronomy – Cataloged stars: The Guide Star Catalog II has entries on 998,402,801 distinct astronomical objects.

10⁹

(1000000000; 1000³; short scale: one billion; long scale: one thousand million, or one milliard)

ISO: giga- (G)

• Info – Web sites: As of May 18, 2026, the English Wikipedia has been edited about 1.4 billion times.
• Transportation – Cars: As of 2018, there are about 1.4 billion cars in the world.
• Demographics – China: About 1.4 billion people live in the People's Republic of China as of 2023.
• Demographics – India: About 1.4 billion people live in India as of 2023.
• Demographics – Africa: The population of Africa reached 1.4 billion in 2023.
• Internet – Google: More than 1.5 billion people use Gmail around the world.
• Internet: About 1.5 billion people were using Facebook as of October 2015.
• Computing – Computational limit of a 32-bit CPU: 2,147,483,647 is the largest number that can fit into a special kind of memory in computers.
• Mathematics: 2³¹ − 1 = 2,147,483,647 is a special kind of number.
• Computing – UTF-8: 2,147,483,648 (2³¹) is the number of different symbols that can be used in an older version of a special coding system.
• Biology – base pairs in the genome: About 3.3 billion base pairs are in the human genome.
• Linguistics: About 3.4 billion people speak Indo-European languages.
• Mathematics and computing: 4,294,967,295 is the largest number that can fit into another kind of memory in computers.
• Computing – IPv4: 4,294,967,296 (2³²) is the number of unique IP addresses possible.
• Computing: 4,294,967,296 is the number of small blocks of information a computer can handle.
• Mathematics: 4,294,967,297 is a special number that is not a prime number.
• Demographics – Asia: The population of Asia was about 4.7 billion in 2021.
• Demographics – world population: About 8 billion people live on Earth as of January 1, 2024.

10¹⁰

(10000000000; short scale: ten billion; long scale: ten thousand million, or ten milliard)

There are about 10¹⁰ bacteria in the human mouth. In math, 32,212,254,719 is the fourth Woodall prime. There are also 49,487,367,289 groups of order 1,024, up to isomorphism. As of 2010, about 5.6×10¹⁰ web pages were indexed by Google.

10¹¹

(100000000000; short scale: one hundred billion; long scale: hundred thousand million, or hundred milliard)

• Astronomy: There are about 100 billion planets in the Milky Way.
• Astronomy – stars in our galaxy: There are roughly 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
• Biology – Neurons in the brain: The human brain has around 100 billion neurons.
• Paleodemography – Number of humans that have ever lived: About 120 billion anatomically modern humans have lived since the Upper Paleolithic began.
• Mathematics: 198,585,576,189 is the only known Descartes number.
• Mathematics – Nine-Colour Cube: 268,240,896,000 is the number of ways to arrange the Nine-Colour Cube.
• Medicine: The United States Food and Drug Administration needs at least 300 billion platelets per apheresis unit.
• Mathematics: 608,981,813,029 is the smallest number with more primes of the form 3_k_ + 1 than of the form 3_k_ + 2 up to that number.

10¹²

(1000000000000; 1000⁴; short scale: one trillion; long scale: one billion)

ISO: tera- (T)

• Astronomy: The Andromeda Galaxy, which is part of the same Local Group as our galaxy, has about 10¹² stars.
• Biology – Bacteria on the human body: The surface of the human body has roughly 10¹² bacteria.
• Astronomy – Galaxies: A 2016 estimate says there are 2 × 10¹² galaxies in the observable universe.
• Biology: An estimate says there were 3.04 × 10¹² trees on Earth in 2015.
• Astronomy: A light-year, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year, which is about 9.46 trillion kilometers (9.46×10¹² km).
• Biology – Blood cells in the human body: The average human body is estimated to have (2.5 ± .5) × 10¹³ red blood cells.
• Biology – Cells in the human body: The human body has roughly 10¹⁴ cells, of which only 10¹³ are human. The rest are bacteria, which mostly live in the gastrointestinal tract.

10¹⁵

(1000000000000000; 1000⁵; short scale: one quadrillion; long scale: one thousand billion, or one billiard)

ISO: peta- (P)

• Biology – Insects: About 1,000,000,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants live on Earth at any time. Their total weight is about the same as all humans combined.
• Computing: 9,007,199,254,740,992 (2⁵³) is the largest number that can be shown exactly in a common computer number format.
• Mathematics: 48,988,659,276,962,496 is a special number called the fifth taxicab number.
• Science Fiction: In Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire, set in 22,500 CE, there are 25,000,000 planets with humans, each having around 2,000,000,000 people. This means about 50,000,000,000,000,000 people in total.
• Cryptography: There are 72,057,594,037,927,936 different possible keys in an old kind of security code.
• Science Fiction: The Star Wars galaxy has about 100,000,000,000,000,000 sentient beings.
• Mathematics – Ramanujan's constant: e^π√163 = 262537412640768743.99999999999925007259... This number is extremely close to the integer 640320³ + 744. See 10⁻¹⁵.
• Physical culture: The most bytes ever lifted by a human is 318,206,335,271,488,635, done by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.

10¹⁸

(1000000000000000000; 1000⁶; short scale: one quintillion; long scale: one trillion)

ISO: exa- (E)

• Mathematics: The first case of exactly 19 prime numbers between multiples of 100 is a very large number.
• Mathematics: 2⁶¹ − 1 is a special kind of prime number found long ago.
• Mathematics: A famous guess about numbers has been checked up to a very big number.
• Computing – Manufacturing: About 6×10¹⁸ tiny parts were made worldwide in one year.
• Computing – Computational limit of a 64-bit CPU: 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 is the biggest number a computer can handle in a certain way.
• Mathematics – NCAA basketball tournament: There are many possible ways to fill out a bracket for this tournament.
• Mathematics – Bases: A certain number can be written in many different number systems without needing extra symbols.
• Biology – Insects: The number of insects on Earth is estimated to be very large.
• Mathematics – Answer to the wheat and chessboard problem: Doubling grains of wheat on a chessboard leads to a huge total number.
• Mathematics – Legends: A famous story about moving discs on posts would take a very large number of steps.
• Computing – IPv6: There are many possible unique groups of addresses for certain internet connections.
• Mathematics – Rubik's Cube: A 3×3×3 cube can be arranged in many different ways.
• Password strength: Using many different characters for a password creates a huge number of possible combinations.
• Internet – YouTube: There are many possible video URLs for YouTube.
• Economics: In one country, prices rose to an extremely high level.
• Mathematics: A certain power of two includes every digit from 0 to 9.

10²¹

(1000000000000000000000; 1000⁷; short scale: one sextillion; long scale: one thousand trillion, or one trilliard)

ISO: zetta- (Z)

• Geo – Grains of sand: All the world's beaches combined have been estimated to hold roughly 10²¹ grains of sand.

• Computing – Manufacturing: Intel predicted that there would be 1.2×10²¹ transistors in the world by 2015 and Forbes estimated that 2.9×10²¹ transistors had been shipped up to 2014.

• Mathematics: 2⁷¹ = 2,361,183,241,434,822,606,848 is the largest known power of two not containing the digit 5 in its decimal representation. The same is true for the digit 7.

• Chemistry: There are about 5×10²¹ atoms in a drop of water.

• Mathematics – Sudoku: There are 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 (≈6.7×10²¹) possible (unique) 9×9 Sudoku grids.

• Computing: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10²²) – number up to which all powers of 10 can be exactly represented in IEEE double precision floating-point format.

• Mathematics: The smallest instance of exactly 20 prime numbers between multiples of 100 is 20,386,095,164,137,273,086,400 + n, for n = 1, 3, 7, 9, 13, 19, 21, 31, 33, 37, 49, 57, 63, 73, 79, 87, 91, 93, 97, 99.

• Mathematics: 5³² = 23,283,064,365,386,962,890,625 is the largest known power of five not containing a pair of consecutive equal digits.

• Mathematics: 24,153,319,581,254,312,065,344 is the sixth and largest known taxicab number.

• Astronomy – Stars: 70 sextillion = 7×10²², the estimated number of stars within range of telescopes (as of 2003).

• Astronomy – Stars: in the range of 10²³ to 10²⁴ stars in the observable universe.

• Mathematics: 146,361,946,186,458,562,560,000 (≈1.5×10²³) is the fifth and largest known unitary perfect number.

• Mathematics: 357,686,312,646,216,567,629,137 (≈3.6×10²³) is the largest left-truncatable prime.

• Mathematics: 2⁷⁸ = 302,231,454,903,657,293,676,544 is the largest known power of two not containing the digit 8 in its decimal representation.

• Chemistry – Physics: The Avogadro constant (6.02214076×10²³) is the number of constituents (e.g. atoms or molecules) in one mole of a substance, defined for convenience as expressing the order of magnitude separating the molecular from the macroscopic scale.

10²⁴

(1000000000000000000000000; 1000⁸; short scale: one septillion; long scale: one quadrillion)

ISO: yotta- (Y)

• Mathematics: A very large number, about 2.8 times 10 to the power of 24, is a special kind of number called a Woodall prime.
• Mathematics: Another big number, about 3.6 times 10 to the power of 24, is the largest polydivisible number.
• Mathematics – Impossiball: There are many different ways to arrange an Impossiball, about 23.56 times 10 to the power of 24 ways.
• Mathematics: 2 to the power of 86 is a very big number that does not contain the digit '0'.
• Mathematics: 2 to the power of 89 minus 1 is a large number and is the tenth Mersenne prime. See List of Mersenne primes and perfect numbers.

10²⁷

(1000000000000000000000000000; 1000⁹; short scale: one octillion; long scale: one thousand quadrillion, or one quadrilliard)

ISO: ronna- (R)

• Mathematics: 2⁹¹ is a very large number that does not contain the digit '1' when written out.
• Biology – Atoms in the human body: The average human body has about 7×10²⁷ atoms.
• Mathematics: 2⁹³ is another large number that does not contain the digit '6' when written out.
• Mathematics – Poker: In a 10-player game of Texas hold 'em, there are about 2.117×10²⁸ different ways the cards can be dealt.

10³⁰

(1000000000000000000000000000000; 1000¹⁰; short scale: one nonillion; long scale: one quintillion)

ISO: quetta- (Q)

• Mathematics: Belphegor's prime, 10³⁰ + 666 × 10¹⁴ + 1, or 1,000,000,000,000,066,600,000,000,000,001.
• Biology – Bacterial cells on Earth: The number of bacterial cells on Earth is estimated at 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 5 × 10³⁰.
• Mathematics: The number of partitions of 1000 is 24,061,467,864,032,622,473,692,149,727,991.
• Mathematics: 2¹⁰⁷ − 1 = 162,259,276,829,213,363,391,578,010,288,127 (≈1.62×10³²) is the 11th Mersenne prime.
• Mathematics: 2¹⁰⁷ = 162,259,276,829,213,363,391,578,010,288,128 is the largest known power of two not containing the digit '4' in its decimal representation.
• Mathematics: 3⁶⁸ = 278,128,389,443,693,511,257,285,776,231,761 is the largest known power of three not containing the digit '0' in its decimal representation.
• Mathematics: 2¹⁰⁸ = 324,518,553,658,426,726,783,156,020,576,256 is the largest known power of two not containing the digit '9' in its decimal representation.

10³³

(1000000000000000000000000000000000; 1000¹¹; short scale: one decillion; long scale: one thousand quintillion, or one quintilliard)

In mathematics, there are about 72,431,714,252,715,638,411,621,302,272,000,000 different ways to arrange something called Alexander's Star. This number is roughly 7.24 times 10³⁴.

10³⁶

(1000000000000000000000000000000000000; 1000¹²; short scale: one undecillion; long scale: one sextillion)

• Biology: The total number of DNA building blocks on Earth is estimated at around 5 followed by 37 zeros.
• Mathematics: A special calculation, 2 raised to the power of 126, equals a very long number without any two same numbers next to each other.
• Mathematics: Another special number, close to 1 followed by 38 zeros, is the largest known double Mersenne prime.
• Computing: The biggest number a computer can show in a certain system is close to 3 followed by 38 zeros.
• Computing: Around 3 followed by 38 zeros is the most Internet addresses possible with the IPv6 system, the total number of special tags called Universally Unique Identifiers, and the total number of different keys in the AES 128-bit key space.

10³⁹

(1000000000000000000000000000000000000000; 1000¹³; short scale: one duodecillion; long scale: one thousand sextillion, or one sextilliard)

Some very big numbers are found in space and math. For example, in space science, there is a number called the Eddington–Dirac number, which is about 10⁴⁰. In math, one of the largest powers of five that doesn’t have the digit '0' in it is 5⁵⁸, which is a very long number with lots of digits. There is also a special number that is the smallest number divisible by every number from 1 to 100, and it is close to another big number, about 6.97×10⁴⁰.

10⁴² to 10⁶³

(1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000; 1000¹⁴; short scale: one tredecillion; long scale: one septillion)

• Mathematics: A special math number, 141 × 2¹⁴¹ + 1, equals about 393,050,634,124,102,232,869,567,034,555,427,371,542,904,833, which is called a Cullen prime.

• Mathematics: There are about 7,401,196,841,564,901,869,874,093,974,498,574,336,000,000,000 different ways to arrange a 4×4×4 Rubik's Cube.

• Mathematics: The number 2¹⁵³ equals 11,417,981,541,647,679,048,466,287,755,595,961,091,061,972,992, and it is special because it does not contain the digit '3'.

• Chess: There are about 4.52×10⁴⁶ possible chess positions following the rules of the game.

• Geo: Earth is estimated to have about 1.33×10⁵⁰ atoms.

• Mathematics: The number 2¹⁶⁸ equals 374,144,419,156,711,147,060,143,317,175,368,453,031,918,731,001,856, and it is special because it does not contain the digit '2'.

• Mathematics: The number 3¹⁰⁶ equals 375,710,212,613,636,260,325,580,163,599,137,907,799,836,383,538,729, and it is special because it does not contain the digit '4'.

• Mathematics: A very large number, about 808,017,424,794,512,875,886,459,904,961,710,757,005,754,368,000,000,000, relates to a complex math group called the monster group.

• Cryptography: The number 2¹⁹² equals 6,277,101,735,386,680,763,835,789,423,207,666,416,102,355,444,464,034,512,896, which represents all possible keys for a special kind of security method.

• Cosmology: About 8×10⁶⁰ Planck time intervals have passed since the universe began in the Big Bang around 13.799 billion years ago.

10⁶³ to 10¹⁰⁰

(1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000; 1000²¹; short scale: one vigintillion; long scale: one thousand decillion, or one decilliard)

This section looks at very, very large numbers — numbers so big they’re hard to imagine! For example, around 10⁶³ is the number Archimedes thought could describe all the sand grains in the whole universe. In mathematics, there are huge numbers connected to puzzles and games, like the ways to arrange a full deck of cards or solve complex cubes.

Even bigger, around 10¹⁰⁰, is a number called a "googol" — that’s just one followed by one hundred zeros! These numbers help scientists and mathematicians understand the limits of what we can count and calculate.

10¹⁰⁰ (one googol) to 10¹⁰⁰⁰

See also: googol

This section talks about very large numbers, starting from 10¹⁰⁰ up to 10¹⁰⁰⁰. These numbers are used in many areas like math, games, and science.

• In math, there are special numbers that show how many ways to solve puzzles like the Rubik’s Cube.
• In games like chess and Go, these big numbers help describe how many possible moves can be made.
• Science uses these numbers to talk about things like the size of the universe and tiny parts of nature.

10¹⁰⁰⁰ to 10^1,000,000

These numbers show very large values found in math and computing. In math, there are special types of prime numbers, like Cullen primes and Fibonacci primes, that have huge sizes. For example, one math problem about cattle creates a number with over 200,000 digits.

In computing, different systems can show very large numbers too. Some calculators and computer formats can handle numbers with thousands or even millions of digits. These big numbers help scientists and mathematicians explore extreme values and solve complex problems.

10^1,000,000 to 10¹⁰¹⁰⁰ (one googolplex)

See also: googolplex

• Mathematics: L_5466311 is a very large prime number with 1,142,392 digits.
• Mathematics – Literature: The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges has at least 25^1,312,000 books, which is about 1.956 × 10^1,834,097.
• Mathematics: There are many huge prime numbers known, like 2^6,972,593 − 1, which has 2,098,960 digits.
• Mathematics: F_10367321 is a probable Fibonacci prime with 2,166,642 digits.
• Mathematics: Some very large numbers, like 10^2,718,281 − 5 × 10^1,631,138 – 5 × 10^1,087,142, are also prime.
• Mathematics: Factorial primes, primorial primes, and other special types of primes exist in this range.
• Mathematics: The largest known prime number as of 2025 is 2^136,279,841 − 1, with 41,024,320 digits.
• Mathematics: Perfect numbers also exist in this range, with the largest known having 82,048,640 digits.
• Mathematics – History: Archimedes discussed a very large number in his work Sand Reckoner.
• Mathematics: The number 10^googol (10¹⁰¹⁰⁰) is called a googolplex. It is a 1 followed by 1 googol zeros, a number so big it would fill the entire observable universe if written out, according to Carl Sagan.

Larger than 10¹⁰¹⁰⁰

One googolplex is a very large number, equal to 10^googol. It is so big that it's hard to imagine! Numbers even larger than this exist in mathematics and cosmology.

Here are a few examples:

• There are at least 10¹⁰¹⁰⁸ possible games of Go. See Game Tree Complexity.
• In stories like Jorge Luis Borges' Library of Babel, the number of ways to arrange the books is about 10^101,834,102.
• In theories about the universe, some ideas suggest there could be about 10^1010,000,000 universes.
• A number called a googolplexplex or googolduplex is 10^1010100, which is 1 followed by a googolplex zeros.
• Graham's number is one of the biggest numbers ever used in math. It’s so large that it’s hard to write down!