Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What's the biggest number? (how to discuss)

My son also went through a fascination with really big numbers when he was four. My husband is a mathematician and they had a lot of fun discussing this. Our favorite book on the subject is Really Big Numbers- the first book for kids published by the American Mathematical Society.

http://www.amazon.com/Really-Number...56231&sr=8-1&keywords=really+big+numbers

I can't recommend this book highly enough. My son learned about combinatorics, exponential notation and graph theory all from this book. It touches on so many fascinating concepts and kids - and adults- with many levels of math literacy can all appreciate it.

when I'm feeling snarky I go with infinity

This reminds me of an assessment at a private school that my son attended a few months ago. The teacher asked him to write his numbers up to 10. My son said he thought that was boring and he'd rather write a really big number, like googolplex. When the teacher admitted he didn't know what a googolplex was, my son said, "You are a teacher, aren't you? What kind of school is this, where the teachers don't even know about googoplexes?" He wasn't admitted. Sigh.

Playing with infinite is loads of fun. Especially after addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are understood conceptually.

Thats great to hear. DS8 loves his "You Can Count on Monsters" Book which is on multiplication, factoring, and primes(which he first read around age 6). The library doesn't have the newer book and I've been too cheap to spend the money for it new. Your review is pushing me over the edge...

@Raptor dad- My son loves "You Can Count on Monsters" but we think the Really Big Numbers is so much better! Let me know what you think if you end up getting it.