For a long time, there was an interesting myth on the Internet: the maximum size of a PDF file is limited to 381 km² – roughly the area of the left bank of Kyiv. This fact has been passed around as a digital legend, but no one has seriously verified it. Until British developer Alex Chan decided to put this experiment to the test. As a result, he created a PDF file that is larger than the entire observable Universe.
From limitations to popularity
PDF (Portable Document Format) was created in 1993 by John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe. The goal was simple – to ensure that documents appear the same on any device. For a long time, PDF was not popular because of the large file size in the slow internet era of the 1990s. But everything changed when the U.S. Internal Revenue Service began accepting returns in this format in 1996. And after PDF became an open standard in 2008, it began to be used by professionals ranging from artists to NASA astronauts.
Maximum size of a PDF, version 7: 381 km × 381 km.https://t.co/Sxz37HMYD1 pic.twitter.com/a4bkgZAjgq
— Terrible Maps (@TerribleMaps) June 30, 2023
The legend about the maximum PDF size arose due to the limitations of Adobe Acrobat – the program simply did not support large pages. However, as Chan discovered, this was a technical limitation of the first programs to display it, not the format itself.
Results of the experiment
Experimenting with the code, he created a PDF file that first exceeded the size of the distance to the Moon (352,778 kilometers) and then the diameter of the observable Universe – 93 billion light years. But the developer went even further. As a result, the final version of the document area occupied an incredible 37 trillion light years squared!
Chan’s experiment showed:
- PDF has no limitations at all – they depend on the programs that open it.
- Technology can be used out of the box – even if it’s the creation of a “blank” file the size of a galaxy.
- Science can be fun. The researcher jokingly warned: “Please don’t try to print it out. There may not be enough ink in the Universe.”
If you’re interested in looking at the largest PDF in the world, it can be viewed here. But the most interesting thing is that despite the huge size, the file takes up only 549 bytes.
Previously, we explained whether the end of the Universe exists.
According to zmescience.com
