99999999

Ok, here it is - the biggest number it is possible to fit on an eight digit screen. My calculator has travelled to the very edge of its flat world and looked down into the depths of oblivion. This is the mental barrier it can never cross, bigger numbers just don't exist.

Should it ever stray into the madness beyond its screen it reserves the space below the 'M' for an 'E' for Error symbol, and many mornings I see both of these on its display.

Today's number is something of a favourite of my calculator, or perhaps a recurring nightmare - I've seen it quite a few times over the years. I have to admit I've had dreams myself that have been so mentally unsettling that I have woken with my own error message: usually a strangled shout that is supposed to scare away whatever monsters are plaguing me but comes out as a nightmarish zombie groan.

The human brain has its boundaries of imagination, more typically involving traumatic experiences, but I wonder if there are other limits to our mental perception, worlds we are not capable of contemplating. Multi-dimensional space and that kind of weirdness. Numbers that are too high for us to count to.

Some of us push pretty hard into the mathematical darkness that shapes everything we see and everything we can't, but for the majority of people that wall is a lot closer than quantum mechanics - even working out the most basic sums has me reaching for my calculator. In that respect its laughing at me, from its eight digit universe.