Largest three digit number in Matlab?

Hello, my professor asked us this question as a sort of a trick question and I can't seem to wrap my head around it. The most obvious choice is "999", but my professor said that is't the answer. My second choice was "Inf", but infinity isn't actually a number so that wouldn't work. Finally, I thought of "realmax", but that wouldn't work either since it contains more than three digits. I'm really curious to know what it could be...

[Karan Sandhu]

Thanks for all the replies people. Just for clarification, The question is exactly as follows: "What is the largest number that can be represented with three digits?". I hope that clears things up and I apologize for any confusion.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

9e+99?

However that number cannot be represented exactly in MATLAB.

9^(9^9) is another possibility but I suspect it cannot be represented exactly either.

2^52 is exactly representable. A good question would be whether any values between that and 2^53-1 can be represented in 3 digits

[Image Analyst]

That's a number that can be represented with 3 digit, but calling it a "3-digit number" doesn't agree with most people's definition of what a 3 digit number is. But maybe the question was instead something like "What is the largest number than can be represented with only 3 digits" - a fine, but important distinction over "What is the largest three digit number?"

Answer 2

[Roger Stafford]

Following Walter's idea, if the number must be exactly representable I propose:

   8^(2^8)

If it doesn't have to be exact, I suggest

   3^(5^4)

Answer 3

[John BG]

999!!!