Excel Number Range

Question

I am trying to make table with the number range even more than excel range i.e. 1*10^(307). Is there any other way I can increase number limit. By the way I cannot change my formula.

Answer 1

Initially:

I am trying to make table with the number range even more than excel range i.e. 1*10^(307). Is there any other way I can increase number limit.

Later:

I found the different software that is specially designed to solve those type of data. 

And that is the best answer.

Both Excel and VBA store numbers in the standard 64-bit binary floating-point form.  That is limited to about +/-10^308.

However, CPUs compatible with IA-32 and Intel64 (aka x86-64) perform arithmetic using an internal 80-bit binary floating-point form.  That is capable of a range about +/-10^4932.

That is the form used in those CPU FP registers, which are accessible to software using assembly language instructions.

In fact, VBA (but not Excel) tries to use the 80-bit FP registers when calculating intermediate sub-expressions.  That is one reason why VBA arithmetic results sometimes differ from Excel.  Nevertheless, the final arithmetic result is rounded to the 64-bit form.

Some computer languages have data types that support storing as well as using the 80-bit form.  In C-language derivatives, the data type is Long Double.

So it is not difficult for a third-party to provide a library of functions that use the 80-bit form.  But note:  not all third-party "multi-precision" libraries use the 80-bit form.  They might simply extend the precision of the 64-bit form.

(For CPUs compatible with Intel IA64 -- "Itanium", not to be confused with Intel64 and x86-64 -- Long Double supports the standard 128-bit binary floating-point form, which has the same exponent range, but more precision.  But I don't believe there are any IA64-compatible computers in the low-end computer market.)

Answer 2

I am intrigued as to what area of physics needs number greater than 10^307?

Counting how many electrons in the universe - but Feynman suggested there is only one

best wishes

Answer 3

Oh! it's a number that I've to deal with my data in Physics class. By the way, I found the different software that is specially designed to solve those type of data.

Answer 4

There is no data type that can handle numbers larger than a Double (10^308). If you don't need to do math on the number, you could use some probably complicated string handling procedures to create text strings that appear to be numbers, but they could not be used for any sort of calculation.

Just out of curiosity, what are you doing that needs numbers greater than 10^308?

Answer 5

That's the largest number it'll deal with as a number.

If you need to work with values larger or smaller than the limits, you'll have to figure a way to do like some programs do that calculate large (or at least long) numbers such as Pi to 10,000 places: calculate pieces, concatenate the pieces into a text string, and present the text string as the result.  But then you won't be able to do further math with it.

And don't ask me how to do that kind of thing - I actually haven't a clue on how to get started, but you might get one from this page:

http://programmervb.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/calculate-pi/

Here is a list of the limits we must live within when dealing with Excel 2010:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-specifications-and-limits-HP010342495.aspx