The number graham once held the record for largest used in a proof

Graham's number is so vast that if each digit occupied a Planck volume, the universe could not contain it. Yet it appears in a real combinatorics proof. Graham's number came from a proof in combinatorics, the branch of math dealing with counting and arrangements, where it served as an upper bound for a hard-to-pin-down quantity. For years it was cited as the largest number ever used in a serious mathematical proof. The number is built using a fast-growing notation stacked on itself repeatedly, producing a value so large that writing it in ordinary digits is physically impossible: there is not enough room in the observable universe to record them, even at one digit per Planck volume, the smallest length physics considers meaningful. The actual answer to the combinatorics problem it bounds is now known to be vastly smaller, and other proofs have since used even larger numbers, but Graham's number remains the popular icon of the idea because of how it was first popularised.

The number graham once held the record for largest used in a proof

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