Busy Beaver Hunters Reach Numbers That Overwhelm Ordinary Math
1 min read
Summary
In the “busy beaver” game, the participant whose Turing machine runs the longest before it eventually stops is the winner, and the running time of this machine is the Busy Beaver Number BB(n).
No one knows what the fifth and sixth of these numbers are, but the hunt for them has involved decades of ferocious computation by researchers and enthusiasts.
In June of this year, one of these enthusiasts found a six-rule machine that will take around 10 to the power of 123 steps to halt — a truly colossal number.
But then the same player found a machine that runs for a time greater than 10 to the power of 123, and then again found one that runs for a time greater than 10 to the power of 100.
