Hello, I'm Brady Harron. This is the Numberphile podcast, and today's episode is a tribute to

the mathematician Ron Graham, who recently died at the age of 84. Ron was a giant in the world of

mathematics, and we'll be talking to various people who knew him well. But I wanted to start

with my own story about Ron Graham.

That's because, without realizing it, Ron was a real inspiration behind Numberphile itself.

And I'd like to explain why. See, as a boy growing up in Australia, I was really obsessed with

books of facts. These were things I'd get at that local library and page after page of trivia was listed.

And one thing that was common in many books at the time was this number called Graham's number.

It was the biggest number ever. Well, the biggest number used in a proof. But that was a minor detail

to me at the time. I was obsessed with the enormity of this number. I remember reading the fact that if all

the atoms in the universe were turned into ink, you still couldn't write down Graham's number.

I recycled this fact all the time. I would tell my friends, I would tell my family. I don't know

why it was called Graham's number. I think I assumed the person who had discovered it was called Graham.

I probably thought Graham was the first name, like Mike or Jane or Bill.

I think it was much later in life, I realized Graham was a surname. The chap was called Ron Graham.

I didn't know who he was, where he was from, anything like that. I

just knew he'd come up with a really big number. A bit later in life, when I was old enough

to be recounting stories to children, I would tell them about Graham's number. I'd use that

ink story time and time again. The kids would be wide-eyed. I had such a big number. I would use it to inspire an interest

in mathematics and numbers. Just as it had inspired my interest in mathematics and numbers,

roll the clock forward a bit more, and a chance came to start a YouTube channel about mathematics.

And I decided to call it number file and focus it on numbers. And it really was

...