title: Javascript - What is the maximum number in scientific notation restricted by?
body: <p>In JavaScript, I was curious to find out what was the <strong>maximum</strong> possible number representable in scientific notation without getting "Infinity" as a result, so I wrote a little program and found out it's this one:</p>
  
  <pre><code>17976931348623158079372897140530341507993413271003782693617377898044496829276475094664901797758720709633028641669288791094655554785194040263065748867150582068190890200070838367627385484581771153176447573027006985557136695962284291481986083493647529271907416844436551070434271155969950809304288017790417449779
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which can be abbreviated to 1.7976931348623157e+308.</p>
  
  <p>My question is, what makes this specific number the maximum possible in JavaScript? Is it hardware-dependent (maybe maximum one on 64 bit?) or language-specific? Why exactly is 308 the maximum usable power of 10?</p>
  
  <p>And also, how different is it in other languages?</p>