Large numbers, Knuth's arrow notation, and Ramsey theory

In the childrens' book The Phantom Tollboothh by Norton Juster one can nd the following passage: Yes, please,, said Milo. Can you show me the biggest number there is?? I'd be delighted,, the Mathemagician] replied, opening one of the closet doors. We keep it right here. It took four miners just to dig it out.. Inside was the biggest 3 Milo had ever seen. It was fully twice as high as the Mathemagician. This is what children might consider to be a large number. The scope of this paper is to shed some light on numbers which adults in former times and now regard as large. Of course, the selection is arbitrary. 1 Large numbers a historical glimpse Numbers have always fascinated people. We start with a short look at the number system of the Romans and the Greeks which will lead us to Archimedes and to the largest number which appears in the literature of early occidental history. The German word Zahll (number) goes back to the Old High-German word zalaa, which in turn belongs (as also the English talee and the Dutch taall do)