Encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism

[Erik Max Francis]

On 07/20/2012 01:11 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 13:50:36 -0500, Tim Chase wrote:
>
>> On 07/19/12 13:28, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 4:20 AM, Tim Chase
>>> <python.list at tim.thechases.com>  wrote:
>>>> Sure it terminates...If you don't run out of RAM to represent the
>>>> number "i" in question, there's also this "heat death of the universe"
>>>> limit I keep hearing about ;-)
>>>
>>> I'd be more worried about the heat death of your computer, it's likely
>>> to be sooner. How many people have access to a computer that'll still
>>> be running in ten years, much less a thousand?
>>
>> Just putting a maximum bound on the problem, providing a time-frame in
>> which I can be fairly certain that the program will have terminated. :-)
>
> I'm reminded of Graham's Number, which is so large that there aren't
> enough molecules in the universe to write it out as a power tower
> a^b^c^d^..., or even in a tower of hyperpowers a^^b^^c^^d^^... It was the
> provable upper bound to a question to which experts in the field thought
> the most likely answer was ... six.
>
> (The bounds have since been reduced: the lower bound is now 13, and the
> upper bound is *much* smaller than Graham's Number but still
> inconceivably ginormous.)

You don't even need to go that high.  Even a run-of-the-mill googol 
(10^100) is far larger than the total number of elementary particles in 
the observable Universe.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
  San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM/Y!M/Jabber erikmaxfrancis
   I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics.
    -- Richard P. Feynman