‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

How big are factorials?

99 points · 43 comments · ibobev

  1. pagade · · focus · HN ↗
    Reminds me of: Professor asked us to find the biggest factorial using C programming language. And then using LISP. You can imagine our surprise.
    1. pkaye · · focus · HN ↗
      There is a algorithm call Prime Swing Factorial that can compute large factorials exactly in arbitrary precision math using prime factorization. Like 10000000! in under second depending of how optimized the math library it. Probably like 100x faster than the normal method.
      1. anthk · · focus · HN ↗
        With Lisp you can use iterative algos and get that under a second too. SBCL can be ridiculously fast; and if you optimize the compilation for integers... the speed gets really close to your solution.
Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.