Factorial of 238

Counting with 238!

There are 7.0918 × 10^463 different ways to arrange 238 different books on a shelf: 238 choices for the first place, 237 for the second, and so on down to one choice for the last. If you only fill the first three places, as with gold, silver and bronze among 238 runners, there are 238 × 237 × 236 = 13,311,816 possible podiums. If the order does not matter, divide by 3! = 6 to get 2,218,636 ways to choose a group of three. Choosing a pair from 238 people can be done in 28,203 ways.

In probability, if 238 names are drawn out of a hat one at a time, the chance of drawing them in one particular order is 1 in 7.0918 × 10^463. That is why shuffled decks and passwords with many symbols are so hard to guess.

How big is 238!?

238! has 464 digits, so it is larger than the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe (about 10^80). The digits add up to 1818, a multiple of 9, as they are for every factorial from 6! on. Stirling's formula, √(2πn) × (n/e)^n, gives a close estimate without multiplying everything out, and gets more accurate as n grows.

Prime factors of 238!

Every prime up to 238 divides 238!. Legendre's formula counts how often: add ⌊n/p⌋ + ⌊n/p²⌋ + ⌊n/p³⌋ + … for each prime p. For 238! that gives 2^232 × 3^115 × 5^57 × 7^38 × 11^22 × 13^19 × 17^14 × 19^12 × 23^10 × 29^8 × … (51 primes in all). The 57 trailing zeros come from pairing the 57 factors of 5 with factors of 2.

Shuffles where nothing stays put

A related count is the number of derangements of 238 items: orders in which no item ends up in its original place, as in a Secret Santa where nobody draws their own name. The count is the whole number nearest to 238! ÷ e, so about 36.8% of all 7.0918 × 10^463 orders are derangements. From about four items on, that share stays close to 1 ÷ e, roughly 37%, however many items there are.

Computing 238! yourself

In Excel or Google Sheets, type =FACT(238). Spreadsheets keep only 15 significant digits, so from 18! on the result is rounded, and FACT stops at 170!, the largest factorial that fits in a standard floating-point number. In Python, math.factorial(238) returns the exact integer with all 464 digits, because Python integers have no size limit. The gamma function extends factorials to fractions: Γ(n + 1) = n!, so (1/2)! = √π ÷ 2 ≈ 0.8862.

Why is 0! equal to 1?

There is exactly one way to arrange nothing, and the rule n! = n × (n − 1)! only works for n = 1 if 0! = 1. Defining it this way keeps formulas for combinations and series correct at the edges.