Factorial of 254

Counting with 254!

There are 1.3140 × 10^502 different ways to arrange 254 different books on a shelf: 254 choices for the first place, 253 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 254 runners, there are 254 × 253 × 252 = 16,194,024 possible podiums. If the order does not matter, divide by 3! = 6 to get 2,699,004 ways to choose a group of three. Choosing a pair from 254 people can be done in 32,131 ways.

In probability, if 254 names are drawn out of a hat one at a time, the chance of drawing them in one particular order is 1 in 1.3140 × 10^502. That is why shuffled decks and passwords with many symbols are so hard to guess.

How big is 254!?

254! has 503 digits, so it is larger than the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe (about 10^80). The digits add up to 1926, 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 254!

Every prime up to 254 divides 254!. Legendre's formula counts how often: add ⌊n/p⌋ + ⌊n/p²⌋ + ⌊n/p³⌋ + … for each prime p. For 254! that gives 2^247 × 3^125 × 5^62 × 7^41 × 11^25 × 13^20 × 17^14 × 19^13 × 23^11 × 29^8 × … (54 primes in all). The 62 trailing zeros come from pairing the 62 factors of 5 with factors of 2.

Shuffles where nothing stays put

A related count is the number of derangements of 254 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 254! ÷ e, so about 36.8% of all 1.3140 × 10^502 orders are derangements. From about four items on, that share stays close to 1 ÷ e, roughly 37%, however many items there are.

Computing 254! yourself

In Excel or Google Sheets, type =FACT(254). 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(254) returns the exact integer with all 503 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.