The theoretical highest countable number is the highest number any single person could possibly count to. This number is somewhere around 805,920,000 The following computation shows how this number was determined. <pre> 1 word seconds minutes hours days years - ------- x 60 ------- x 60 ------- x 16 ----- x 365 ---- x 115 -------- = 805,920,000 3 seconds minute hour day year lifetime </pre> Assumptions: - The person starts counting at the age of five and spends their entire life counting. - The person is allowed eight hours each day for sleeping and to satisfy basic needs. - The person lives to an age of one hundred and twenty. - It takes the person an average of three seconds to speak each number. Other Research: Andrew Evans from "Big Question" says that practically, if you were to start counting from 1 the second you were born and increase by a number a second until you die at the age of 79 you’d reach only as high as 2,492,985,600 - less than half the number of people alive on the planet.
This is silly, people arent the only thing that can count you know. The highest countable number is the number of discrete units of energy in the universe. Since all processes are physical, including counting one can not count more than there is.
