The general solution was found in 1880 by Carl Ernst August Amthor (1845–1916), headmaster of the Gymnasium zum Heiligen Kreuz (Gymnasium of the Holy Cross) in Dresden, Germany.[2][3][4] Using logarithmic tables, he calculated the first digits of the smallest solution, showing that it is about 7.76 × 10 206544 {\displaystyle 7.76\times 10^{206544}} cattle, far more than could fit in the observable universe.[5] The decimal form is too long for humans to calculate exactly, but multiple precision arithmetic packages on computers can write it out explicitly.