Largest possible values in R
max, r
Solution
It's the maximum possible floating point Double number (see IEEE 754 standard):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-precision_floating-point_format
Floating point values - Single, Double - are computed on FPU and so don't depend on if the computer, OS etc is 32 or 64-bit one
consult `?.Machine` and see `.Machine$double.xmax`
Problem
I was playing around in R and noted that the largest value it can spit out is - 2^1023+2^1022.9999999999999 = 1.797693e+308 This was the same for both the 32 bit version running on a 32 bit machine and a 64 bit version running on a 64 bit machine. What is the reason for this being the maximum number (or some thing close to this) and why is it independent of the architecture of the machine?