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23 things you always wanted to know about numbers
The Guardian ^
| July 6, 2003
Posted on 07/08/2003 5:48:53 AM PDT by tdadams
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Interesting trivia
1
posted on
07/08/2003 5:48:54 AM PDT
by
tdadams
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2
posted on
07/08/2003 5:49:25 AM PDT
by
Support Free Republic
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To: tdadams
Very interesting.
but some people appear to have WAAAAAAAAAAAy tooo much time on their hands (not referring to you)
3
posted on
07/08/2003 5:52:02 AM PDT
by
Gabz
(anti-smokers = personification of everything wrong in this country)
To: tdadams
so 99 came to mean 'the best there is'.As in "Maxwell Smart?"
4
posted on
07/08/2003 5:55:04 AM PDT
by
JimVT
To: tdadams
2 Prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 13 and so on ...) are divisible only by themselves and the number one. The largest prime number yet discovered has 2,098,960 digits. If we were to print nothing except this number across all sections of today's and next week's Observers (containing around 250,000 words in each issue) we could just about fit the number in.
Just throwing my own bit of trivia in... this must be an older list. The largest Mersenne prime found so far is over 4 million digits... I'm not a mathematician, but that would seem to tell me that the largest known prime is well larger than this.
To: tdadams
Never heard of the "Golden Mean" (# 16 above), but it might be another name for Fibonacci's number, derived from Fibonacci's sequence.
The sequence is 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34.... (Each number is the sum of the two previous numbers in the sequence).
Divide any number in the sequence by its predecessor, and you get a number around 1.618 - the higher you go, the close you get to this magic number.
6
posted on
07/08/2003 6:05:23 AM PDT
by
Izzy Dunne
(Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
To: JimVT
As in "Wayne Gretzky."
LOL.
bump...
8
posted on
07/08/2003 6:26:44 AM PDT
by
Lyford
To: tdadams
This is by far the most interesting post I have ever read (w/o skimming) on FR.
Thank you.
9
posted on
07/08/2003 6:27:30 AM PDT
by
bedolido
(please let my post be on an even number... small even/odd phobia here)
To: Izzy Dunne
Never heard of the "Golden Mean" (# 16 above), but it might be another name for Fibonacci's number, derived from Fibonacci's sequence. The sequence is 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34.... (Each number is the sum of the two previous numbers in the sequence). Divide any number in the sequence by its predecessor, and you get a number around 1.618 - the higher you go, the close you get to this magic number.Oh Yeah!!! (???)
10
posted on
07/08/2003 6:34:37 AM PDT
by
bedolido
(please let my post be on an even number... small even/odd phobia here)
To: tdadams
Infinity is the largest number of all. Except, of course, for infinity plus one.Ignorant writer. There are an infinity of infinities and they are of distinct cardinalities. The infinity this writer is probably talking about is the number of whole numbers, which is the smallest infinity. For this infinity, that statement is false because the number of elements in a set with "infinity" elements can be placed into one-to-one correspondence with a set containing the same elements, but with one additional element added.
There are different types of infinities as well. The number of points on a line segment greatly exceeds the number of whole numbers, and this can be shown fairly easily. For more information, see any good undergraduate text in real variables.
To: Izzy Dunne
Re: Golden Mean
a/b=b/a+b
12
posted on
07/08/2003 6:48:43 AM PDT
by
orchid
(Defeat is worse than death, you have to LIVE with defeat.)
To: tdadams
18 Eleven days were skipped in 1752 when the Gregorian calendar replaced the previous Julian calendar, which had got out of synch due to inaccuracies in measuring the earth's orbit. A London mob rioted, furious at losing eleven days of their lives. The actual reason was that landlords charged a full month's rent, for that short month
13
posted on
07/08/2003 6:55:32 AM PDT
by
SauronOfMordor
(Java/C++/Unix/Web Developer looking for next gig)
To: tdadams
What have the Arabs ever done for us? Nothing, or zero to be more precise. Abstract mathematics were a mystery to the Western world until the introduction of the number zero from Arabia in the tenth century. There's some question about this, at least in my mind. I thought the Arabs obtained the concept from the folks in India, and popularized it.
Marketing, not engineering.
14
posted on
07/08/2003 6:57:06 AM PDT
by
Izzy Dunne
(Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
To: Izzy Dunne
If you take a rectangle with a height of 1 and a width of 1.618 and chop in in two so that one part is a square (height 1 and width 1), the other part will have a height of 1 and a width of 0.618. This has the same ratio of height to width as the original rectangle had of width to height.
The actual golden ratio is 0.5 * (1 + sqrt(5)).
15
posted on
07/08/2003 6:57:14 AM PDT
by
KarlInOhio
(Paranoia is when you realize that tin foil hats just focus the mind control beams.)
To: tdadams
re: #9 on the list...
The Mayans understood the concept of "zero" many centuries before the Arabs.
16
posted on
07/08/2003 7:02:11 AM PDT
by
Range Rover
(Karma is a boomerang...)
To: 17th Miss Regt
I infinitely agree. :)
17
posted on
07/08/2003 7:02:55 AM PDT
by
MrConfettiMan
(Brain tumor survivor since August 19, 2001. Striving, thriving and surviving each and every day.)
To: tdadams
1 If your precocious nine-year old daughter asked you to place one penny on the first square of a chessboard, two pence on the second square, four pence on the third, and so on, you would need to put £92 million billion on the 64th and final square. The last square would contain 2^63 pence
= 92233720368547758.08 pounds
= 92.23 x 10^15 (approx)
= 92.23 x 10^6 x 10^9.
That would be 92.23 million billion with the American definition of billion instead of the British one.
Once again American Hegemony triumphs over old Europe. :-).
18
posted on
07/08/2003 7:04:20 AM PDT
by
KarlInOhio
(Paranoia is when you realize that tin foil hats just focus the mind control beams.)
To: Izzy Dunne
Actually, you can start with any two real numbers, provided they are not both zero.
19
posted on
07/08/2003 7:09:34 AM PDT
by
Sarastro
To: tdadams
Another interesting take on numbers:
A professor of mathematics sent a fax to his
> wife:
>
> *
> > Dear Wife:
> > You must realize you are 54 years old and I have
> certain needs
> > which you are no longer able to satisfy. I am
> otherwise happy with you
> > as a wife. I sincerely hope you will not be hurt
> or offended to learn
> > that, by
> > the time you receive this letter, I will be at the
> Grand Hotel with my
> > 18-year old teaching assistant. I'll be home
> before midnight.
> > Your Husband
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> When he arrived at the hotel, a faxed letter waited
> for him:
>
>
>
>
> > Dear Husband:
> > You, too, are 54 years old and by the time you
> receive this
> > letter, I will be at the Breakwater Hotel with the
> 18-year old pool
> boy.
> > Since you are a mathematician, you will appreciate
> that 18 goes into
> 54
> > more times than 54 goes into 18. Therefore, don't
> wait up.
>
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