The Hub

Basically, I wrote a computer algorithm that allows me (or rather my computer) to calculate multiplying numbers so big it doesn't even know they are numbers.

Incidentally, I found a bug in my algorithm which under certain circumstances caused the wrong result. The correct result for the diameter of the visible universe is: 34,639,608,606,299,136,000,000,000,000 inches.

To put this into context, that number is hundreds of millions of orders of magnitude larger than a 64-bit computer can recognise as a number.

As for my Orbital Calculator, that is free software (Windows), and comes with the sun, 8 planets, 16 major moons and two smaller objects (Ceres and Pluto) by default. To calculate an orbit, just select the gravitational mass, enter the orbital altitude (you can enter both perigee and apogee if you want to create an elliptical orbit) and it will calculate the orbital speed and period in various formats. Handy if you're a sci-fi writer like myself.