Factorial of 72

Counting with 72!

There are 6.1234 × 10^103 different ways to arrange 72 different books on a shelf: 72 choices for the first place, 71 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 72 runners, there are 72 × 71 × 70 = 357,840 possible podiums. If the order does not matter, divide by 3! = 6 to get 59,640 ways to choose a group of three. Choosing a pair from 72 people can be done in 2,556 ways.

In probability, if 72 names are drawn out of a hat one at a time, the chance of drawing them in one particular order is 1 in 6.1234 × 10^103. That is why shuffled decks and passwords with many symbols are so hard to guess.

How big is 72!?

72! has 104 digits, so it is larger than the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe (about 10^80). The digits add up to 432, 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 72!

Every prime up to 72 divides 72!. Legendre's formula counts how often: add ⌊n/p⌋ + ⌊n/p²⌋ + ⌊n/p³⌋ + … for each prime p. For 72! that gives 2^70 × 3^34 × 5^16 × 7^11 × 11^6 × 13^5 × 17^4 × 19^3 × 23^3 × 29^2 × … (20 primes in all). The 16 trailing zeros come from pairing the 16 factors of 5 with factors of 2.

Shuffles where nothing stays put

A related count is the number of derangements of 72 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 72! ÷ e, so about 36.8% of all 6.1234 × 10^103 orders are derangements. From about four items on, that share stays close to 1 ÷ e, roughly 37%, however many items there are.

Computing 72! yourself

In Excel or Google Sheets, type =FACT(72). 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(72) returns the exact integer with all 104 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.