Introduction
Along with the content on this site giving information on specific large numbers and ways to make them, I've decided to add a list of numbers sorted by their size. The main aim of this list is to provide a review of numbers big and small, any and all which I find to be significant. In addition this page serves as a catalog for me to keep track of all the numbers that I find to be somwhow notable. I like to consider the list "semi-comprehensive" as it aims not to be completely comprehensive as that would be boring, but still list any numbers I find to be in some way notable. It's so long that it needs to be split into 6 parts, and it's still not finished (it will probably have seven when it is)!
The list has a variety of numbers: in it I go through all "major" googolisms (e.g. gongulus), many less "regular" googolisms (e.g. coogol), numbers with interesting properties (e.g. 211), numbers significant in humanity or science (e.g. the world population), various numbers I made (e.g. meroogol), numbers that are the results of plugging in numbers into systems (e.g. f3(3)), and many others (including numbers with personal significance, like 17). The list as a whole has over 2100 entries and counting! Its inclusion or exclusion of specific numbers is probably at least a little biased, since this is my list :-)
The list is updated pretty nearly every day with new or improved entries for numbers, so be sure to take a look now and then for new entries.
Like Sbiis Saibian's list, my list is divided into ranges of numbers (color-coded to see the progression), which are themselves divided into entries for numbers. The entries include how the number can be expressed and/or an approximation for the number, unless neither is possible to compactly write, as well as the name of the number if it has one. The entries will also more often than not contain descriptions of what is notable about their number. In general, I want to have a minimal amount of entries without descriptions. As of this writing the later parts of the list have stretches of googolisms without descriptions, and I plan on changing that. I have decided to start this number list with zero, as zero is a natural starting point for a list of numbers like this. Here I'll specifically list finite nonnegative numbers. I also have separate lists of other numbers: if you're interested in some notable negative, imaginary, or complex numbers look here, and if you're interested in looking at some infinite numbers look here.
Making a list of numbers on a site on large numbers was not my own idea. There are two other lists which serve as inspiration for this list: 1. Sbiis Saibian's Numbers Sorted by Size, a number list heavily focused on numbers notable to googology 2. Robert Munafo's Notable Properties of Specific Numbers, a very comprehensive list of any and all numbers with notable properties Since I have now said what needs to be said about this list, we are now ready to begin our journey through the large numbers, starting with part 1, any numbers from zero to a million. PART 1: THE TINY DUST BITS
0 ~ 1,000,000
You can find any numbers that I find to be interesting below a million on this part of the list. It has been argued that any number below a million shouldn't be a large number, so in some sense these numbers aren't large at all. They aren't scary at all either ... ok maybe a little.
The Zero Range
0
Entries: 1
Zero 0 We open our list of positive numbers with the important number 0, which I consider to be the second most important number in existence, behind the number 1. Although zero is neither positive nor negative, it still serves as a natural starting point for a list like this. If you want to learn about notable negative numbers and miscellany look here. Zero's importance stems from being the additive identity, meaning that adding 0 to a number gives the original number. In fact, in formal mathematics 0 is often defined as the number x such that any number a plus x is still a. Therefore it's an inherently special number in all of mathematics and everywhere, which is also why 0 gets a range of numbers on this list all to itself. While all other numbers represent something, 0 represents nothing, making it special. But 0 can represent more than nothingness. It can also represent the very beginning or before the first, or a placeholder digit in numbers such as 50630005 with 0s in it. Zero also very often leads to degenerate cases in functions, i.e. calculations that do not result in large values. For example, x+0 = x, x*0 = 0, x0 = 1, x^^...^^0 with as many ^s as we want is 1, and f0(x) is equal to x+1 in the fast-growing hierarchy. However, since 0 does not normally represent a quantity of something, it took a very long time for zero to be recognized as a number like 1, 2, 3, etc. were thought of as numbers (see my large number timeline for more). The earliest known record of zero as a number was around 250 BC, and in Europe this happened around the 1500s. Before then it was only recognized as a digit, and even that took a while, largely because many numeral systems like Egyptian and Roman numerals didn't need zero.
Because of zero's unique history, the name "zero" cannot be traced back to Indo-European roots like 1, 2, 3, etc can be; rather, it's traced back to Arabic "sifr". That became "zefiro" in Italian, and was later contracted to "zero". For the name of zero, English is actually a special case among Germanic languages (like English, German, and Dutch): in most Germanic languages the word for "zero" resembles "null", and that's also true for Slavic languages such as Russian. However, in other Indo-European languages (such as Romance languages like French, Spanish, and Italian), the word for zero does resemble "zero". For an interesting bit of trivia relating to zero, see the entry for 101010 in part 2, a number equal to one followed by ten billion zeros. The Very-Small-Number Range
0 ~ 0.001
Entries: 16
Reciprocal of a croutonillion click here (thanks Cloudy176) Reciprocal of BIG FOOT 1/FOOT10(10100) This is the reciprocal of BIG FOOT, currently honored as the largest named number by the googology community. This number is therefore an insanely small number, unfathomably close to 0 - and yet there's infinitely many numbers between this number and 0, and infinitely many numbers between this and the next number or the reciprocal of any really big number.
Reciprocal of Rayo’s number 1/Rayo(10100) This number is the reciprocal of one of the largest numbers ever known, known as Rayo's number. Once again this is inconceivably close to the number 0, but there's still infinitely many numbers between this and the next or previous numbers, or whatever else. This is a mind-bending truth that comes from working with small numbers if you've gotten accustomed to the behavior of large numbers. Reciprocal of meameamealokkapoowa oompa 1/{LLLL........LLLL, 10}10,10 with a meameamealokkapoowa-sized array of L’s The reciprocal of Jonathan Bowers' largest named number, called meameamealokkapoowa oompa. Since meameamealokkapoowa oompa is a ridiculously huge power of 10, its reciprocal's decimal expansion is a bunch of zeros and then 1. The number of 0's here might seem to be a lot smaller than meameamealokkapoowa oompa, but on a scale with numbers this large, it’s very far from any meaningful difference because with this number we are FAR past exponentiation. Reciprocal of a beengulus 1/{10,100(0,0,4)2} Just pulling out the reciprocal of a random Bowersism. The reciprocal of this number is a superdimensional array of 100(4*1002) entries, much bigger than the array used to represent a gongulus. Reciprocal of a tristo-threagol 1/E100###100###100#100#100 Now pulling out the reciprocal a random Saibianism, which is approximately {10,101,2,1,3} using Bowers' notation. This number is, once again, 0.0000.....0001 with a shit load of 0s, like the previous two numbers. The number of 0s is still almost exactly the same as a tristo-threagol, relatively speaking. This is approximable as a 5-entry array, so it’s in the low mid-level googolisms. Reciprocal of Graham's number 1/G(64) Because if I don't mention it, someone else will. Googolminex 1/1010100 or 10-10100 Also known as the reciprocal of a googolplex. This is 0.000....0001 with a googol minus one zeros after the decimal point. There’s no way we could write all those zeros out, even if we put a 0 on every atom in the observable universe. The name "googolminex" was coined by Conway and Guy in their Book of Numbers. They said that since googolplex = 10googol, x-plex can be thought of as 10n (though it could have been anyone who first came up with this), and by analogy (plus:plex::minus:?) x-minex should be 10-n, aka 1/10n. Interestingly, googolminex, despite being less than 1, can be considered a googolism due to its unique googological name, although Sbiis Saibian suggests that a name for a small number be called a "micronym" - he has named a few "micronyms" (example). See 21 and grangolplex/googolcentiplex for further discussion on the term "googolism". Googol-minutia-speck 10^-110 This is currently Sbiis Saibian's smallest googolism. It is formed by combining the name "googol" with the suffix -minutia meaning the reciprocal of x with the suffix -speck which divides a number by ten billion. Sbiis Saibian suggests the term "micronym" for googolisms for numbers less than 1. To get an idea of how small this number is, imagine the volume of the observable universe, 3.5*1080 m3. Then imagine a 10^110th of the observable universe, aka a googol-minutia-speck fraction of the universe. That would be 3.5*10-30 m3, aka a sphere 94 picometers in diameter. You may wonder, how small is 94 picometers? 94 picometers is approximately the diameter of an oxygen atom. That means that we can imagine an oxygen atom as being approximately a googol-minutia-speck portion of the universe. Now that's a pretty small number. Googol-minutia 10^-100 or 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000001
This teeny tiny number is the reciprocal of a googol, called "googol-minutia" by Sbiis Saibian. It can be easily written out, and it's close to 0 but not quite inconceivably close. It can be called a googolth, or by the -minex idea it could be called "hundredminex" (see googolminex). Since a googol can be considered to be on the (very high end) universe scale, a googol can be considered to be on the fraction of the universe scale. A small biological virus would be a googolth of the volume of the observable universe. Planck time in seconds 5.390*10^-44 Planck units, the smalest units theoretically measurable, are home to some of the smallest numbers known to the real world, and to be meaningful as sometimeng other than the reciprocal of a large (greater than 1) number. This is the length of the Planck time in seconds - about 2*10^43 of those times fit in a second! This is the smallest positive number Robert Munafo puts on his number list. See also the Planck length and the Planck temperature.
1.619*10^-35
This is the length of the Planck length in terms of meters. The Planck length is the amount of length light travels in a Planck time, and it's the smallest physically meaningful length. Likewise a Planck area is a square Planck length and a Planck volume is a cubic Planck length. One septillionth 10^-24 or 0.000000000000000000000001 One septillionth is notable because it represents the smallest official SI prefix, yocto-. Its name is derived from octo-, which obviously means eight. It’s very small of course, so small that we really don't need to use smaller SI prefixes for practical purposes There are various extensions to those prefixes though, which I discuss on this list, and on this page where I propose my own extension. Here are some examples of the yocto- prefix: A proton weighs about a yoctogram, A yoctometer may be the size of a neutrino. The half-life of hydrogen-7 is 23 yoctoseconds. As you can see yocto- makes things very very small. Zepto- is a thousand times more than yocto-, and then we have atto-, femto-, pico-, nano-, micro-, and milli, each being 1000 times more than the previous. Proportion of integers such that π(x) > li(x)
~ 0.00000026
This number was shown in 1994 to be approximately the proportion of all positive integers such that π(x) > li(x) - see Skewes' number for details. This proportion is surprisingly large, given that you need to go to such large numbers (at least 1014 as of this writing) to find the smallest numbers with this property.
One millionth 10^-6 or 0.000001 A millionth of something is represented with the prefix micro-, one of the more well-known SI prefixes. Its name literally means "small". Some examples of it: Microbes can be measured in micrometers. Light takes a microsecond to travel 300 meters in a vacuum, but that’s more of an example of how fast light is. For one more example, the 2011 Japanese earthquake, known for its sheer destruction, decreased the duration of Earth’s day by 2 microseconds, but really this shows how stable and large Earth is rather than how much a microsecond.
Percentages this small are usually not noted as 0.0001%, but as the easier to understand 1 ppm (part per million). The ppm unit can be used to denote, for instance, 0.00000334 as 3.34 ppm. Also used is ppb (parts per billion), the less common ppt (parts per trillion), and the still less common ppq (parts per quadrillion). Eyelash mite-speck 0.000002 This number is among Sbiis Saibian's smallest googolisms. See here and here for how it's formed. It's equal to exactly the recioprocal of 500,000 or two millionths. Because it's a googolism for a small number, it's an example of a micronym (see also googolminex). The Larger-Small-Number Range
0.001 ~ 0.99999
Entries: 28
One hundredth / one percent 1/100 or 0.01 This is 1/100, or one percent (1%). 1% is figuratively used to represent almost none, but just as 100 is definitely not a giant number, 0.01 isn't really a "tiny number". 1% of something can even visualized quite clearly as a bit of it. For example, picture a bowl. Then picture 1% of it. It’s not nothing, but still much less than full. Also, if something has a 1% chance of happening, would it really be that rare? (see 0.99) One twentieth 1/20, 5/100, or 0.05 This 1/20, often referred to as 5%. 5% is easily perceivable as more than 1% but less than 10%. It is one of the more familiar percentages in life.
(1/e)e 0.065988... This is the reciprocal of the mathematical constant e, raised to the power of e. It is the smallest number x such that xx^x^x^x.... (an infinite power tower of x's) converges to a finite number. Any smaller number will fail to converge and just alternate between numbers close to 0 and numbers close to 1 as the power tower gets taller. See also e1/e. One tenth 1/10 or 0.1 One tenth, or 10%, is figuratively used to represent a bit of something. It is easier to visualize than 1%. 10% is still a lot less than whole. One ninth
1/9 or 0.1111..... with infinite 1’s One ninth probably has the simplest repeating decimal expansion of all fractions. It has infinite 1’s. It’s slightly larger than one tenth and hard to distinguish from it. Champernowne constant 0.12345678910111213141516... This is an interesting irrational number called the Champernowne constant, formed by combining the digits of all the positive integers in base 10 into a decimal. It's one of the very few numbers that have been proven to be a normal number in base 10, i.e. a number where all strings of digits of any length n appear with equal probability - for example in this numbers' digits you're just as likely to find 302 in a random spot as you are to find 734, and you're as likely to find 164835 as you are to find 430798. Other well-known irrational constants like the square root of 2, e, or pi, are conjectured to be normal but this has not been proven. The Champernowne constant's continued fraction (see 292 for a discussion of continued fractions) is an unlikely source of large numbers. The first few numbers to appear in its continued fraction are 0, 8, 9, 1, 149,083, 1, 1, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 1, 1, 1, and 15, and the next one has 166 digits, so it's larger than a googol. The terms of the sequence have very erratic behavior, and the next very large term is the 41st term, which has 2504 digits. Even weirder, people have found patterns of terms in the Champernowne constant's continued fractions.
One can define the Champernowne constant in any base - for example, in binary it would read as 0.11011100101110111... (that's not equal to the base 10 Champernowne constant) - however in other bases the Champernowne constant has not been proven to be normal. One eighth 1/8 or 0.125 One eighth’s full expansion has three decimal places, so it terminates. This is because 8’s prime factorization (23) consists only of factors of 10. If we were in base 3, 7, or 15, 8’s decimal expansion would repeat since its prime factorization does not consist only of factors of these numbers. One seventh 1/7 or 0.142857.... where the underlined digits repeat infinitely This number’s expansion is more complicated than that of nearby numbers - in fact, it's the simplest fraction with a repeating pattern of more than one digit (see 7). This number is connected to the interesting number 142,857, called integral-megaseptile. One sixth 1/6 or 0.16666..... with infinite 6’s This number's digits also repeat, because its prime factorization contains 3, which is not a factor of 10. It’s reasonably distinguishable from a tenth and a fifth, but not that easy to tell apart from a seventh. One fifth 1/5 or 0.2
Another simple decimal, which is easy to visualize from anything. Not that much to say about it, but since 5’s prime factorization is simply 5 and 5 is a factor of 10, ⅕ has a terminating decimal expansion. It’s twice as big as a tenth. By now each fraction (not necessarily each number) is distinguishable from its neighbors in the list.
i^i 0.207879576..., When you raise i (the unit of imaginary numbers) to its own power, you stangely end up with a real number that falls between a fifth and a fourth. It's equal to e-π/2 - the reason you can use complex powers like this is because you can extrapolate the infinite series to calculate powers to complex inputs, which will often give you unusual results such as this one. Natural density of abundant numbers 0.2477±0.0003 The natural density of a certain set of positive integers (such as square or composite numbers) is the percent of all positive integers that are in that set. If the percent of numbers within that set approaches 0 as the range of numbers reaches infinity (such as if the set is the powers of 2), then the natural density of that set is 0. Abundant numbers, numbers whose divisors add up to a number greater than to the original number, have a natural density between 0.2474 and 0.2480. This means that about one out of four positive integers is abundant. See also 0.607927102... One fourth / one quarter
1/4 or 0.25 A particularly commonly used fraction. One fourth has its normal name as well as the more special name one quarter. Fourth is used more for denoting parts of a tangible object, while quarter is used more for larger areas or units that are less tangible. For instance, the term “quarter” is used as the name of a 25-cent coin, or a quarter of a dollar. Common logarithm of 2 log10(2) 0.301029996... This is the number that, when you raise 10 to its power, becomes two. Despite being less than 1, this number actually has some significance to googology. Here's how: Consider a number like 22500 (that's raising 2 to the power of "2 to the power of 500"). Naturally we want to estimate this number in base 10, as a power of 10. However, no conventional calculator can actually support values this big. Instead, we can convert the 2 in the base to 10log(2): 22500 = (10log(2))2500 Then we can just use the laws of exponents, specifically (ab)c = ab*c: = 10log(2)*2500 All that's left now is calculating log(2)*2500 - putting the equation in a calculator gives us 9.8539*10149. Therefore 22500 is about: 109.8539*10149 This means that making use of this logarithm (and any logarithm numbers for that matter) is useful for determining where powers that are not powers of 10 fall amongst the googolisms. See also log(log(2)), a negative number with a similar use in googology. One third 1/3 or 0.333.... with infinite 3’s This number is the result of dividing one into three, notable for being extremely simple yet impossible to express exactly in decimal without expressing some kind of repetition. This is because 3 cannot be divided into our base, 10. This leads to some properties that grade schoolers who have learned about fractions may find mentally distorting. For example, take Sbiis Saibian's recount of his disconcerting childhood experiences with the digits of 1/3 (source):
My first falling out with infinity, so to speak, had to do with a certain fraction. You may recall in grade school learning that 1/3 is "point 3 repeating". This struck me however as very disconcerting. Mathematics, the one absolutely exact science, the paragon of precision, now contained a number that could not be expressed "exactly". Yes I know that 1/3 can be expressed "exactly" as a fraction, but as a kid I didn't see it that way. The decimal representation was the "true" form of number, and yet 1/3 had no such representation. Stubbornly I refused to accept this as fact. So I performed the long division on 1/3 thinking I'd prove them wrong. Well the 3's kept coming until it became abundantly clear that it could never end. Here was infinity, not as some distant entity, or abstraction for the whole of mathematics, but as something immediately present in a finite number! After this I became more suspicious of infinity, and my attention turned directly to it.
Even stranger, this leads to some utterly counter-intuitive properties. For example, observe here: 1/3 = 0.333... 1/3*3 = 0.333...*3 1 = 0.999... It is infamously counterintuitive that this extremely simple and sound proof, shows that 0.999... with infinite 9's equals one! When learning of that equality, people often attempt to try to go against the laws of mathematics to "show" that 0.999... cannot equal one, because it's so counterintuitive. This is what my brother once did not long ago, when I told him about the equality: he tried to redefine "numbers" in some crazy way that makes absolutely no sense and is mathematically unsound just so that 0.999... does not equal one! However, he eventually accepted his intentions as naive. The name “one third” for this number isn’t special, but the word “third” somewhat is. It’s one of only three ordinal numbers that has a name other than a root based on the English number’s name followed by -th, such as fourth or fiftieth, except for numbers whose names end in one, two, or three. Even those aren’t special because it’s simply things like “twenty-third” and “one hundred fifty second”. Third is somewhat special but is still based on three. The two truly special ordinal numbers are first and second, both of which clearly have their own origin. Aarex's Funny Number 0.42513153135 One old page of Aarex's old large numbers website has a table with the numbers 0 through 20 and their names, and lists a property of each of them. But between 0 and 1, Aarex puts 0.42513153135 and says its name is "42513153135 hundred billionth" and its property is that it's a "funny number". log(3)
~ 0.47712125...
This is the number that, when you raise 10 to its power, becomes three. Similarly to log(2), this number has use in googology when you're estimating large powers of 3 (such as 3^3^3^3) in terms of base 10. But more interestingly, you can use this and log(2) to mentally estimate the logarithms of some of the composite numbers, specifically the 3-smooth numbers (numbers that have no prime factors larger than 3). This is because of the identity, log(a*b) = log(a)+log(b). Here's some examples of logarithms we can estimate using these two logarithms:
log(6) = log(2*3) = log(2)+log(3) ~ 0.301+0.477 ~ 0.778
log(9) = log(3*3) = log(3)+log(3) ~ 0.477+0.477 ~ 0.954
log(18) = log(2*3*3) = log(2)+log(3)+log(3) ~ 0.301+0.477+0.477 ~ 1.255
etc.
To estimate the logarithms of any 5-smooth number you only need to know one more logarithm, the logarithm of five (about 0.699).
One half 1/2 or 0.5 Also known as half, 50%, zero point five, one over two, one out of two, five out of ten, and so on. This number is so important in life that it gets the special name “one half”, not one second or the silly-sounding one twoth. There’s no other figurative way to describe 50% of something than half. One half is sometimes used figuratively to mean most, even though that’s technically inaccurate for obvious reasons. Euler-Mascheroni constant 0.57721566... This is the Euler-Mascheroni constant, denoted with the Greek letter gamma (γ). It was first used in 1734 by Leonhard Euler, who is considered one of the very most important mathematicians to have ever lived. Here's how this number is defined: Consider the sum: 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 ... + 1/n The sum for n = 1, 2, 3 ... = 1, 1.5, 1.8333..., 2.08333..., etc, and as n approaches infinity (yes the sum diverges to infinity, unlike what you might expect for a sequence like this) the difference between the sum and ln(n) approaches γ. The Euler-Mascheroni constant crops up in several places in mathematics, but it's not as well known as constants like pi and e. Natural density of squarefree numbers
6/π2 ~ 0.607927102
Squarefree numbers are numbers that aren't divisible by a square number (other than 1 of course) (see also 49). Their natural density is 6/π2, meaning that about 61% of all positive integers are squarefree. This is one of the many examples of pi cropping up in a place you don't expect it to.
Two thirds
2/3 or 0.666...... with infinite 6’s The simplest and most common non-unit fraction. It is very familiar and easily visualized. Two thirds is used figuratively to mean more than half. 2/3 is important enough that the ancient Egyptians had a special symbol for it - in fact it's the only non-unit fraction that got its own symbol. Other non-unit fractions were expressed as the sum of unit fractions, e.g. 1/2+1/4 in place of 3/4. - they always used the sum of non-unit fractions. It is not known why they did that, but it's certainly an unusual technique. Natural logarithm of two ln(2) 0.693147181...
Another logarithmic number. This number crops up several different places, like when working with half-lives of radioactive substances, or with doubling and the rule of 72. e to the power of this number is 2.
Three fourths / three quarters 3/4 or 0.75 Another common and tangible non-unit fraction. This is also so common that it’s used figuratively to mean most, both as three fourths/quarters and 75%.
Four fifths 4/5, 8/10, or 0.8 Once again, 8/10 is more tangible than 4/5, and therefore more often used. We’re close to wrapping up the numbers below 1. Nine tenths 9/10 or 0.9 Most commonly referred to as 90%. This number is just as tangible as 10% is, and 90% is used as a figurative term for most, almost “almost all”. Nineteen twentieths 19/20 or 0.95 Most commonly called 95%. This is about a lower limit for “almost all” and it’s used figuratively (as 95%) for almost all. Ninety-nine hundredths 99/100 or 0.99 Ninety-nine hundredths, also known as 99%. This, generally, clearly would mean almost all and is used figuratively as such. Visualizing 99% of something is almost like visualizing the whole thing.
But often, 99% just isn't close enough to the whole thing. For example, imagine a machine to detect whether someone was a criminal with 99% accuracy. This may seem like a good accuracy, but imagine that machine was used on the entire population of the United States. That would give 3 million false results! Therefore, when dealing with a large scale 99% accuracy isn't even close to good accuracy. One minus a millionth / nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine millionths 999,999/1,000,000 or 0.999999 Almost indistinguishable from 1 in general terms, but still can be told apart when dealing with a small scale. One minus the reciprocal of Rayo’s number 1-1/Rayo’s number Because I can. The One Range
1
Entries: 1
One 1 One is arguably the most important number in existence, defined as the number x such that any number a multiplied by x is still a. It has many unique properties (mostly for trivial reasons) and it also plays a unique role among the numbers (READ MORE)
The Superunit Range
1 ~ 1.999999
Entries: 26
One plus the reciprocal of Rayo’s number 1+1/Rayo(Googol) Yep, we are beginning our journey through large numbers very very slowly, with an INSANELY small large number - remember that in the entry for 1 I talked about how Sbiis Saibian proposed that a number between 0 and 1 should be considered a small number and a number between 1 and infinity should be considered a large number (1 is neither large nor small). This number is 1, a decimal point, a shit ton of zeros, and a mysterious sequence of numbers that we will never know how it starts or ends. Even if you raised this number to the power of something like Loader's number you wouldn't make it close to the next entry ... One plus the reciprocal of meameamealokkapoowa oompa 1+1/{LLLL........LLLL, 10}10,10 with a meameamealokkapoowa-sized array of L’s This is one plus the reciprocal of Jonathan Bowers' largest googolism, a number called meameamealokkapoowa oompa. As you probably guessed, this is 1.000.....00001 with just under a meameamealokkapoowa oompa zeros, another example of an insanely small large number. Although meameamealokkapoowa oompa is extremely ambiguously defined, I'm still including this as an example of how small we can get. One plus the reciprocal of a tethrathoth
1+1/E100#^^#100
A tethrathoth is a googolism by Sbiis Saibian, which, like meameamealokkapoowa oompa, is an insanely huge power of 10. This is one plus its reciprocal - like the previous number this is 1.000.....00001 with an unfathomable huge amount of zeros - however the amount is much smaller than the previous entry's amount of zeros.
Graham's root of googolminex and one (1+10-10^100)-1/G(64)
This number was given by Sbiis Saibian as an example of an extremely small large number - see Graham's number * googolplex. One plus the reciprocal of Graham's number
1+1/G(64) Another number virtually equal to one, which is 1.0000.......00000????????........ where ? is an unknown digit. When you raise this to the power of Graham's number, you get a number almost exactly equal to the mathematical constant e. It's much larger than the number two entries before this one in that you need to raise it to a number almost exactly (on a googological scale) equal to a tethrathoth to get this number. And yet, both of those numbers are virtually equal to one. One and a googolminex 1+1/1010^100 One plus the reciprocal of a googoplex, aka one, a decimal point, a googol-1 zeros, and another 1. This number is still inconceivably close to 1, but at least the number of zeros before we hit a nonzero digits is not completely unfathomable, as we can use the entire observable universe to get a feel of how big a googol is. But you still need to square this number over a googol times to exceed two, so this is still a really really small large number, and much more of one than the next entry. One and a googolth 1.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000001
This number looks very close to one, and true, it is. But it's so far from one that I can actually write all the zeros that show the difference between this and 1, as the number of zeros is only 99! In contrast with the previous number, you need to square this number only 332 times to exceed two, so it's really a very big jump from the previous number, but quite tiny in comparison to ... One and a millionth 1.000001 Still very close to one, but not quite inconceivably close to one. It may seem insanely close, and as a ratio it really is, e.g. when you compare the volumes of two stars. But you only need to square this number 20 times to exceed two. How about:
One point oh one 1.01
Also known as a 1% increase. This is a big jump from the previous number, as objects with a size ratio of this can at least be distinguished if you look closely, something that you could never do with one and a millionth. You only need to square this 7 times to exceed two. A 1% increase looks like a slight increase, and generally is one. For example, if something increases by 1% each year it would take about 70 years to double. This may seem like a slow increase or a fairly fast increase depending on the concept, but hey, we're now at numbers where an increase of this ratio is generally quite tangible. Though this increase with doubling time may seem unimpressive, with only a few more percentage points such an increase becomes absolutely drastic (see 1.07).
Twelfth root of two 1.05946309... This is the number such that when you multiply it by itself twelve times, you get exactly 2 - yes that's how amazingly big this number is. It's notable as the pitch ratio of a half step in music, e.g. the pitch ratio of C and C-sharp, or the ratio of E and F. This number comes from the fact that two notes that are an octave apart have a pitch ratio of precisely two, and that there are twelve half-steps in an octave - it can be thought of as a number so big that pitches with a ratio of this can be easily distinguished. Other interesting things about pitch ratios include:
A perfect fifth (like C and G) has a pitch ratio of exactly (or very nearly) 1.5, and perfect fifths are known for sounding good. A tritone (half an octave, like C and F-sharp) has a pitch ratio of exactly the square root of 2, and tritones are known for not sounding good. One point oh seven 1.07 This is an example of a number that looks like a slight increase - however in reality that increase is quite staggering. If the world population were to multiply by this much annually (which it doesn't), that means it increases by 7% annually. That sounds quite small, but it actually means that the world population will double in only ten years - in twenty years it would quadruple and in only thirty it would multiply eightfold! Now that's a staggering increase, but pales in comparison to what you'd get by adding three more percentage points (see next entry). One point one 1.1 This is 1.1, an increase by 10% from one. It's a number that can be thought of as so big that it's an easy-to-notice ratio almost regardless of what is involved. If you saw someone 10% taller than you, you'll definitely notice the difference in height right away (e.g. 6' is very easy to tell from 6'7" which is ten percent taller). An object 10% bigger than an object next to it is quite a bit bigger. If your computer has a 10% bigger hard drive than your friend’s, you’d be able to fit in quite a bit more stuff. If something were to increase by 10% annually, the increase would be quite horrifying even compared to the already staggering 7%. If that increase were to happen to something, say the world population, then in only eight years the population doubles, in fifteen it quadruples, in twenty-two it multiplies eightfold, and in thirty years it would be 20 times larger! That increase easily crushes a 7% annual increase.
Apéry's constant 1.20205 This is ζ(3) with the Riemann zeta function, an irrational constant which is the value of the infinite sum 1/13+1/23+1/33+1/43 ... It is an important constant in mathematics and also in physics, and it's known as Apéry's constant because Roger Apéry proved it to be irrational. Unlike some other values of the zeta function (e.g. ζ(2)), this one is not known to have a nice compact expression (aside from ζ(3) of course) and needs to be expressed with infinite sums. It isn't even known whether this is a transcendental number or not. For more on the Riemann zeta function see ζ(2). One and a fourth/quarter 1.25 This number is nearly always a sizable increase from 1. For example, if you are a man 6 feet (183 cm) tall you would be considered quite tall but not by any means unusually tall, but being 25% taller than that (i.e. 7 feet 6 inches / 229 cm) is considered extraordinarily tall. Square root of 2 1.41421356.... The square root of two is one of the most important and well-known irrational numbers. It is defined as the number x such that x multiplied by itself is 2. It isn't too hard to prove that the square root of two is irrational, as it was one of the first numbers proven to be irrational. This number, like constants such the square root of 3, e, and pi, appears very often in mathematics. For example, the length of the diagonal of a square is always √(2)*side length. e1/e 1.444667... This is the mathematical constant e raised to the power of its reciprocal. It has a number of interesting properties. It's the highest value of the function y = x1/x. It's also the solution to the equation xe = e, which sounds impossible but it's not: (e1/e)e = e(1/e)*e = e1 = e. This is also the largest number x such that xx^x^x^x....... (infinite power tower of x's) converges to a finite value, a property discovered by Euler. If a number a is between this one and (1/e)e, an infinite power tower of a's will converge to the number b (b≤e) such that b1/b = a. For example, an infinite power tower of √2's will converge to the solution of b1/b = √(2), aka 2. An infinite power tower of any number larger than this will diverge to infinity. See also (1/e)e. One and a half 1.5 Probably the most notable increase from 1, and is a significant increase from 1. For example, if you saw someone 50% taller than you you’d definitely think they were tall, and if you noticed an object 50% bigger than its neighbor you would easily notice the difference. Golden ratio / phi 1.618033... = [1+√(5)]/2 The golden ratio, sometimes denoted with the Greek letter phi (φ), is an important constant in mathematics, defined as the number x such that 1/x = x-1 and equal to half the sum of one and the square root of 5. It has several interesting properties. For example, it is the solution to the equation x = 1+1/x, and also the solution to the equation x2 = x+1 - this means that φ (1.618033...), 1/φ (0.618033...), and φ2 (2.618033...) all end with the same digits. Also, as you go higher and higher through the Fibonacci sequence the ratio between consecutive terms approaches the golden ratio. There is also the "golden rectangle", a rectangle whose sides have a ratio of the golden ratio. It has the notable property that if you chop off the a square of side length a from the golden rectangle, where a is the length of the shorter side of the rectangle, you end up with another smaller golden rectangle. Additionally golden rectangles are commonly considered to be the most aesthetically pleasing, and thus many pieces of architecture are designed to resemble that rectangle.
π2/6 1.64493... This is the value of the infinite sum, 1/12+1/22+1/32+1/42 ..., aka the value of ζ(2) with the Riemann zeta function. The zeta function is an extremely famous function in mathematics, noted ζ(n) with the Greek letter zeta and defined as the sum of the series 1/1n+1/2n+1/3n+1/4n ... and it's known for its interesting behavior and important properties. Some values of the function, such as this one, are known to have a nice compact expression, and some, such as ζ(3), are not. One reason why this number is interesting is because it gives an example of an occurrence of pi in a place you won't expect it to, in the nice compact expression π2/6. This number has several interesting properties - for example, if you pick two random integers, the odds of them having no divisors in common is 1 in 1.64493..., and this number's reciprocal is the natural density of the squarefree numbers. Square root of 3 1.732... Another very important irrational number that crops up largely in geometry. For example, the height of an equilateral triangle with side length a is equal to a*√(3)/2. Square root of pi 1.77245...
This number is the square root of pi, a number that crops sometimes in mathematics. It is the area underneath a bell-curve of height 1 and standard deviation 1. It is also equal to Γ(1/2) using the gamma function, a generalization of the factorial to any real or complex inputs. Since Γ(n+1) for positive integer n = n!, this number can be thought of as -1/2!, the factorial of -1/2. Both of these are examples of pi cropping up in a place you don't expect it to.
One point eight
1.8
1.8 is the ratio between an increase of one degree Fahrenheit and an increase of one degree Celsius, and therefore it (along with 32) shows up in the formula for converting between the two scales.
The Natural-Palpable Range
2 ~ 6.999
Entries: 15
Two 2 Like one, two is another extremely important number, and the first integer that can only be defined from existing numbers. It also has many unique properties (READ MORE).
For a discussion of the importance of the powers of 2, see 1024. Square root of 5 2.236... The square root of five crops up sometimes in mathematics. It isn't as common as the square roots of 2 and 3, but still important, most notable in the definition of the golden ratio. ln(10)
2.302585...
This is the number x such that ex = 10. It is the ratio of ln(x) (the natural logarithm) to log(x) (the base 10 logarithm), and it therefore makes calculating base-10 logarithms easier if you have an algorithm to calculate ln(x).
Two point five four 2.54 2.54 is defined by the SI as the exact length of an inch in centimeters. This list has many other measurement-related numbers. e 2.7818... This is a well-known mathematical constant that competes with the square root of two as the second best known irrational constant, behind pi. It is also called Euler's number since this important constant was made famous by Leonhard Euler - however he was not the first person to use the constant. e can be defined in multiple ways: the limit of (1+1/x)x as x approaches infinity, the number a such that the derivative of ax is itself (that means that at any point, the slope of the graph of ex is the same as the x-coordinate of the point), the number a such that the function ax has slope 1 at x = 0, etc. It varies greatly what people first learn e to be, and I first learned it as the number a such that the function ax has slope 1 at x = 0. Another way to calculate e is with the sum: 1 + 1/1! + 1/2! + 1/3! + 1/4! ... (sum of the reciprocals of the factorials) In fact you can calculate ex for any x with the sum: 1 + x/1! + x2/2! + x3/3! + x4/4! ... e appears most often in calculus when working with functions, and there it crops up again and again. It even appears a few times in googology, like when working with infinite power towers, estimating large factorials like the contrived googolbang, and in the definition of Skewes' number. Three 3 Three, the result of adding one to two, is another number with many unique properties. It's also known for being an inherently appealing number, with many famous occurrences (READ MORE) π / Pi 3.14159265.... Pi is the most well-known of all the irrational numbers. It's most commonly defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. People knew about it since ancient times; ironically, despite ancient Greek mathematicians knowing about the number, it was not represented with the Greek letter pi until the 1700s. Pi shows up in mathematics when working with circles and other geometric functions such as the trigonometric ratios, but it also shows up in a lot of places you wouldn't expect it to (example). This is part of why pi has been given a lot of cult significance as a number - people have memorized pi to insane amounts just for the sake of it, and the current record for digits of pi memorized is 100,000! Many people have pointed out some unusual coincidences regarding the digits of pi as well, as is often the case with other cult numbers. Because pi's digits go on forever, it is a common misconception that pi is an infinite number; therefore, pi has sometimes been mistakenly thrown into the large number discussion as an example of a really large number. Well guess what: an even more incredible number is 3.2, or better yet, the unfathomably large 4! Something some might consider a little more clever would be pi with the decimal point removed, but since such a "number" is not finite, it's the same thing as throwing infinity into the large number discussion. As I said in the introduction to this site, throwing infinity into the large number discussion is cheating, and nobody likes cheaters. However, pi does indeed legitimately show up a few times in googology, most notably in Stirling's factorial approximation, a method to estimate large factorials like the googolbang. It also appears in googolisms like Ballium's number and piplex, but those don't really reflect pi's use in googology as much as its popularity as a number. 355/113 3.14159292035... This is an approximation for pi which is accurate to six decimal places, which has been known since ancient times. It's interesting because it's unusually accurate for such a simple approximation - see 292 for why this is. 22/7 3.142857... where the underlined digits repeat infinitely A common approximation for pi. This one has some personal significance to me. First of all, I noticed by myself as a kid that 3 1/7 is close to pi. Later, one time in third grade I was at school talking about pi with a friend of mine who was also interested in mathematics. He used long division to calculate 22/7, and said that was equal to pi. I knew it was an approximation, and told him of that (I think). This shows that people often mistake approximations for a number for the actual value. Square root of 10 3.16227... Another less accurate approximation for pi, but a somewhat convenient one in ancient times because it's the square root of our numeral base. Square root of 12 3.46410.... Once as a child (first or second grade), for whatever reason I thought pi was the square root of 12, until my mom told me that it wasn't. I have no idea why I ever thought such a ridiculous thing, but nonetheless I was surprised when I later learned that the square root of 10 (not 12) was sometimes used as an approximation for pi. Four 4 Four is a number with unique properties such as being the smallest composite, the smallest non-trivial perfect power, a common occurrence with twos in googological functions. It is also, among other things, a number things are very often grouped in (READ MORE) Five 5 Five is yet another number with zillions of properties - prime, Fibonacci, a Fermat number, part of the only twin prime triplet, the number of Platonic solids, etc. It's also significant as half of the base of our numeral system, and one of the larger numbers we can generally recognize at once (READ MORE) Six 6 Some of six's properties is that it's the smallest perfect number, a triangular number, a factorial, primorial, the number of faces on a cube, the number of trigonometric functions, etc. (READ MORE) Six is also the boundary between class 0 and class 1 numbers, and the base of Robert Munafo's entire idea of classes - class 0 numbers are numbers small enough to recognize immediately, and they range from 1 to 6. Then class 1 numbers are numbers too large to recognize immediately but still physically perceivable, and they go range from 7 to a million. Read my page on 6 (link above) for more on that.
Tau / τ
6.28318531... = 2*π
This number is two times the famous number pi. It's the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius (not diameter), and it's often represented with the Greek letter tau. This number is seen often enough that it's sometimes treated as a mathematical constant in its own right, and some people argue that tau deserves to have all the recognition and fame that pi has.
The Secondary-Sense Range
7 ~ 19.999
Entries: 15
7 Seven is a prime number, a Mersenne number, a factorial prime, the smallest number of sides of a regular polygon not constructible with compass and straightedge, etc. It is a number that has a famous cult significance, given much spiritual significance since ancient times (READ MORE) d Eight
8 Eight is the second and smallest non-trivial cubic number (2^3), a power of 2 (2^3), and the largest cubic Fibonacci number. It's also the number of vertices on a cube, as well as the number of cardinal directions most people would choose from when specifying on a map (north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest). 8 is also the number of bits in a byte (stands for "by eight") in computing, giving it a lot of digital significance. Since a bit can store 0 or 1, a byte can store 256 different values. Bytes are also multiplied by powers of 1000 (or 1024) to give kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, etc. For more on that see the entry for 1024, a general discsussion of the convenience of powers of 2 to us Earthlings. Eight occurs commonly in nature, in creatures such as spiders or octopi (the name "octopus" even means "eight feet"). A set of eight also often has the sense of completeness a set of four has.
The prefix octa- (both Latin and Greek, such as October, octagon, octahedron, octopus, octave) is used for eight, and iit is one of the more commonly used number prefixes. Nine 9 Nine is 3^2, the third square number. It is the smallest odd composite number. It is also the maximum number of cubes needed to sum up to any positive integer, as well as the third expofactorial (3^2^1, see 262,144) and the fourth subfactorial (see 44). 9 and 8 are a unique pair of numbers. They are the only pair of perfect powers that neighbor: 8 = 23 and 9 = 32. They're also the only positive integer pair of xy and yx, x < y, where xy > yx. For more on this kind of thing see the entry for 16, the only nontrivial integer case of xy = yx, and for more on close perfect powers see 26, the only number to fall right between a square and a cube. also, 8 and 9 add up to 17 :) 9 is the largest number that is normally represented with a single glyph - beyond this point multiple digits are combined using place-value notation, which is today the dominant way to denote numbers. Place value notation has been used since the time of the Sumerians (see my large number timeline for more on that). Because 9 is the largest single-digit number, it's easy to test for divisibility by 9. Just add the digits of the number repeatedly until you end up with a single-digit number - if that number is 9 then it's divisible by 9. For example, take 76,347: 7+6+3+4+7 = 27 2+7 = 9 - therefore 76,347 is divisible by 9. This method is known as "casting out nines", and works for the largest single-digit number in whatever base you're using. Prefixes for 9 include nona-/nov- (Latin, like in November) and ennea- (Greek, like in enneagon and enneagram). They’re relatively uncommon, but not obscure. (pointless fact: In Greek-based naming systems (mono-, di-, tri-, tetra-, penta ... ), nona- is often used in place for ennea-, even though nona- is latin - for example, a 9-sided polygon is often called a nonagon. I hate that usage with a passion, and think nonagon should never be used and instead have the word enneagon.) Ten 10 Ten is a number that is both triangular and tetrahedral, and it also has a special property discussed at the entry for 39 (sum of prime numbers 2 to 5 and the product of 2 and 5). But its importance in humanity definitely comes from being the base of our numeral system (READ MORE) Booga-e (by Nayuta Ito's proposal) ~ 10.30495187 Up-arrow notation is a famous way to make insanely large numbers - if you're not familiar with it read here. However, a notable gap in the notation is its lack of support for arguments that are not nonnegative integers, such as 1.5, -3, or pi. To solve this problem, Nayuta Ito of Googology Wiki made a proposal to define up-arrows for any positive real arguments - for example, in that system we can define values like pi^^^e. But better yet, the system allows us to define fractional up-arrows - for example we can have 3{1.5}3 ({x} means x up-arrows), which is equal to about 144.023. The system has these three rules: b>1 and n>1: a{n}b = a{n-1}b-1
0≤b≤1 and n>1: a{n}b = ab
0≤b≤1 and 0≤n≤1: a{n}b = abn*b1-n
This particular number is defined with Sbiis Saibian's booga- prefix, a prefix defined as booga-x = n{n-2}n. For example, booga-four = 4{4-2}4 = 4{2}4 = 4^^4, a number with about 8*10^153 digits. For more on the booga- prefix read here. With that generalization of up-arrows, we can define booga-x for any positive number x>2. This number is booga-e in that system, equal to about 2.718{0.718}2.718. The number is equal to exactly eee-2*ee-3, or about 10.30495. Another number you can define with that system is booga-pi, which isn't too much bigger.
Eleven 11 Eleven is the fifth prime number, and the smallest two-digit prime. It's the smallest repunit prime, and the next is equal to 1,111,111,111,111,111,111 - see that number's entry for more. Multiples/powers of eleven tend to be interesting: for example, 121, 1331, and 14,641, the square, cube, and fourth power of eleven, coincide with the first few rows of Pascal's triangle, a very important triangle of numbers in mathematics. Another property is that when you take a multiple of 11, reversing it gives another multiple of 11. All this stems from 11 being one more than the base of our numeral system, and is thus something specific to base 10. This kind of stuff is also reflected in the School House Rock song "Good Eleven", which talks about multiplying by eleven and how easy it is. It's also easy to test for divisibility by 11 - my favorite way is to subtract the last digit from the rest of the digits, and repeat that process - if you get 0 then it's divisible by 11, and if you don't it isn't. For example: Test 45,056:
4505 - 6 = 4499 449 - 9 = 440 44 - 0 = 44 4 - 4 = 0 - therefore it's divisible by 11.
This makes eleven the fourth easiest prime number to test for divisibility in base 10: the easiest are 2 and 5 (check the last digit), followed by three (sum of digits is divisible by 3). The rest of the prime numbers are harder to test for divisibility in base 10. Even better, this divisibility test also gives you the quotient when dividing a number by 11 - the quotient is each digit you subtracted, read in reverse order - in our case, the digits subtracted to test 45,056 for divisibility by 11 and 6, 9, 0, and 4, and therefore the quotient 45,056/11 = 4096.
The name "eleven" literally means "one left" - like twelve it doesn't match with the pattern of names "thirteen" to "nineteen".
Because things often go on a scale from one (or zero) to ten (since ten is our numeral base), "up to eleven" is a common idiom for taking something beyond the extreme - the idiom is usually credited to have originated from the movie "This is Spinal Tap". Twelve / dozen 12
Twelve is a highly composite number - it has more divisors than any smaller number (for more on highly composite numbers see 36). Because of that, twelve has a special numerological significance, as sets of twelve are notably common in the human world. Some examples are:
- 12 months in a year
- 12 zodiac signs - clocks in America and sometimes in Europe are 12 hours - 12 inches in a foot - 12 eggs in a typical package - 12 days of Christmas - the 12 Olympic Greek gods - 12 function buttons on a keyboard - 12 notes in a scale in Western music In fact, sets of twelve are so common that such a set gets a special term called a dozen (for example, a box of a dozen donuts) - the name comes from French "douzaine" meaning twelve of something. Twelve has the property of being the smallest abundant number. An abundant number is a number whose factors add up to a number larger than the original. Twelve is abundant since its factors (1, 2, 3, 4, and 6) add to 16, which is larger than 12. Additionally, a perfect number is a number whose factors add up to exactly the original number (they're very rare, for more about them see 496) and a deficient number is a number whose factors add up tot a number smaller than the original. An interesting property of abundant numbers is that if a number is perfect of abundant, all of its multiples will be abundant. Therefore abundant numbers are common, as around 25% of numbers are abundant.
Twelve is also the number of pentominoes (see also 35), and the fourth "weak factorial" (see that entry for more), i.e. the smallest number divisible by 1 through 4.
The main prefix for twelve is dodeca-, which is Greek. It is found in words like dodecagon and dodecahedron. Its Latin prefix, duodeci-, is found in a few words like duodecimal, the usage of twelve as a numeral base instead of ten.
Thirteen / baker’s dozen 13 Thirteen has a number of mathematical properties: it is the sixth prime, a Fibonacci number (next is 21) and the fourth busy beaver number, the largest fully known value of the sequence. The first three busy beaver numbers are 1, 4, and 6 - for more on them see 107 and 4098. The prefixes for thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, etc. are trideca-, tetradeca-, pentadeca-, etc. 13 is the number of Archimedean solids - those are 3-D figures that are fully symmetric like the five Platonic solids, but have two or more different types of regular-polygon faces. Those 13 solids are: - the truncated tetrahedron, the simplest which is just a tetrahedron with the corners cut off - the cuboctahedron, as its name suggests it combines properties of the cube and the octahedron with 8 triangular and 6 square faces - the truncated cube, a cube with the corners cut off which has 8 triangular and 6 octagonal faces - the truncated octahedron, an octahedron with the corners cut off which has 6 square and 8 hexagonal faces - the rhombicuboctahedron, this is my favorite one, which i like to think of as a 3-dimensional analog of an octagon - the truncated cuboctahedron, a cool shape which looks kind of like the rhombicuboctahedron's more complex big brother - the snub cube, this one looks like a smoothed-out cube and has 6 square and 32 triangular faces - the icosidodcecahedron, this one combines the icosahedron and the dodecahedron with 20 triangular and 12 pentagonal faces - the truncated dodecahedron, which has 12 decagonal (10-sided) faces and 20 small triangular faces that look "chipped-off" - the truncated icosahedron, this one's shape is familar because it looks very much like a soccer ball - the rhombicosidodecahedron, this is has 62 faces and is somewhat reminiscent of the rhombicuboctahedron - the truncated icosidodecahedron, this one is to the rhombicosidodecahedron as the truncated cuboctahedron is to the rhombicuboctahedron - the snub dodecahedron, this is the most complex and the most-smooth-looking one with 92 faces 13 is also the smallest emirp - an emirp is a prime number whose digits, when reversed, produce a different prime, in this case 31. See also 17. Thirteen is perhaps most notable for having a connotation of bad luck in Western culture. This means that often, house numbers or elevator floors of 13 are omitted, and Friday the 13th is considered a very unlucky day. In fact, to keep an even-odd-even-odd pattern in numbering, sometimes even 14 is omitted in such numberings - for example, I have seen airplane seats that are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, ... 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, etc.
13 of something is sometimes known as a baker's dozen, similar to the term "dozen" to twelve, but the term is a lot less widespread. It's also the current best lower bound to the problem where Graham's number arose - see my page on Graham's number for details. Fourteen / Poulter's dozen 14 14 is an example of a semiprime, a number that is the product of two prime numbers, in this case the product of the primes 2 and 7. Semiprimes have no more than two non-trivial divisors (i.e. divisors that are not one and itself), and if the semiprime is a square then it has only one non-trivial divisor. Fourteen is the first even number that doesn’t really have a feel of completeness due to being the double of the somewhat irregular seven - it can't be divided by very many numbers, as its only factors are 1, 2, 7, and 14.
14 is the smallest Keith number (see 197).
I have heard of 14 of something being called a "poulter's dozen", though that usage is quite rare. Bignum Bakeoff was a competition held in 2001 where the goal was to make a C program with no more than 512 characters to produce as big of a number as you can. 20 entries were submitted, and 14 of them produced a value that was not 1. Of the other six, three of them (carnahan.c, pete.c, pete-2.c) didn't terminate, and three of them (dovey.c, edelson.c, f.c) only produced 1. The fourteen programs that did produce a large number were, in order of output (smallest to largest): pete-3.c, pete-9.c, pete-8.c, harper.c, ioannis.c, chan-2.c, chan-3.c, pete-4.c, chan.c, pete-5.c, pete-6.c, pete-7.c, marxen.c, loader.c Click on any one of the links above to see an entry on the list describing each of the programs sumbitted. Fifteen 15 Fifteen is an example of a triangular number, a number that is equal to the sum of the first x integers - in 15's case, 15 is 1+2+3+4+5. The nth triangular number can be calculated with the well-known formula, n*(n+1)/2. Triangular numbers are named that because a triangular number of things can be arranged as a triangle. For example, with 15 we have: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o The first 20 triangular numbers are: 1 3 6 10 15 21 28 36 45 55 66 78 91 105 120 136 153 171 190 210 15 is the magic constant of the smallest and best-known magic square, a square of distinct numbers (none is used more than once) whose rows, columns, and diagonals add up to the same number. The smallest is the only (not counting rotations and reflections as distinct) 3x3 magic square, which is: 4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
15 is halfway between the numbers 10 and 20, and therefore one of the more common numbers from 11 to 19. Like 14, 15 is also an example of a semiprime. 14 and 15 are the first pair of semiprimes that are neighboring numbers - I call such numbers twin semiprimes. See also 33. (the last thing you'd want on your large number site is someone not being motivated to update it, but as it turns out that might be what you gæt)
Sixteen 16 Sixteen is an example of a perfect power, a number that can be expressed exactly with exponents and integers. Of perfect powers, numbers that can be expressed as x^2 are called square numbers/perfect squares, numbers expressible as x^3 are called cubic numbers, numbers expressible as x^4 can be called tesseract or quartic numbers, continue with penteract, hexeract, etc, with the Greek number prefixes. 16 is 2^4 (second tesseract) and 4^2 (fourth square). Actually, it's a particularly interesting perfect power. It's the first number expressible as a perfect power in more than one way (see also 64, 81, and 4096). Better yet, it has the special property of being the only non-trivial solution of x^y = y^x where x and y are both integers. See also square numbers at 25. Sixteen is part of an interesting sequence of numbers of the form x^x^x. It is the second member of the sequence, preceded by the trivial 1 and succeeded by an astronomical number equal to about 7.6 trillion. For more on that sequence see my entry on 10^10^10. 16 is another more common number because it’s a power of 2. Its prefix, hexadeca-, is fairly common, such as in the term "hexadecimal", the usage of 16 as a numeral base - that connects to computers' connection with powers of 2 (see my entry on 2 for more on that). In the googo- naming system, 16 can be named googoij. See also googoi (2) and googoiji (216). Seventeen 17 Seventeen is both one of my childhood favorite and current favorite numbers, and one with so long of an entry that it has its own page (READ MORE) Eighteen 18 18 is this list's example of a composite number, which you probably already know, is a number that can be evenly divided by numbers other than 1 and itself. In 18's case, 18 can be divided by 2, 3, 6, and 9. Its prime factorization is 2*32. Why did I choose to give an "example entry" for composite numbers? Because many of my list's entries are mainly examples for certain classes of numbers (Kaprekar numbers for 45, highly composite for 36, primorial primes for 29, sums of primes for 58), and thus I've decided to add example entries for things like composite and prime numbers for completeness's sake - Robert Munafo does this to a greater extent on his list. Because 18 is quite highly divisible for its size, it's a fairly commonly used number for grouping things. It's the second smallest abundant number, followed by 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 42, 48.... 18 has the property of being the only positive integer that is exactly twice the sum of its digits. This is quite easy to see if you consider that if a number has three or more digits the sum of the digits will always be necessarily much less than half of the number, and then you can check each number below 100 individually to see this.
18 is the most common adulthood age in the world, as in most countries the age you are considered an adult and the voting age is 18. Other common adulthood ages are 16 and 21.
Nineteen 19 Nineteen is an example of a prime number, a number that can't be divided evenly by any numbers other than 1 and itself. Primes are significant in mathematics for zillions of reasons as I discuss on this list, and the first few are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37...
Nineteen is the eighth prime number. It's also twin primes (primes two numbers apart) with 17, cousin primes (primes four numbers apart) with 23, and sexy primes (primes six numbers apart) with 13. This makes it an example of a number in all three well-known prime pairs. Such numbers are uncommon, and another example is 11. See also 23, 53, and 211. 19 and 17 are an interesting prime pair; they're twin primes that are both exponents of Mersenne primes (131,071 and 524,287 respectively). 17 and 19 appear to be the largest twin prime pair to have this property. The Higher-Secondary Range
20 ~ 49
Entries: 33
Twenty 20 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o ^ For visualization, that above is twenty o's.
Twenty is an example of a tetrahedral number - a tetrahedral number is a number that is equal to the sum of the first n triangular numbers (see 15). The first few are 1, 4, 10, 20, 35, 56, 84, 120, 165, 220... and they're called tetrahedral numebrs because a tetrahedral number of spherical objects (e.g. oranges) can be arranged in a tetrahedron (aka a triangular pyramid): layer 1 layer 2 layer 3 layer 4 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Like with triangular numbers, tetrahedral numbers have a special formula: the nth tetrahedral number is equal to n*(n+1)*(n+2)/6. Twenty has sometimes been used as a base of number naming. This may be because twenty is the total count of all fingers and toes on a human being. For example, the Mayans used twenty as their base, with five as a sub-base, and 20 is also used in traditional Welsh and in some African languages, and in Danish numerals from 50-99 and in French numerals from 60-99. Twenty of something is sometimes called a score (see the entry for 87 for an example of this usage), though this usage is somewhat dated nowadays. The most common prefix for 20 is icosa- (from Greek), like in icosahedron. The Latin prefix for 20, viginti-, is sometimes used in terms like vigintillion, a favorite large number of mine.
20 is the number of entries that were submitted in Bignum Bakeoff, a large number competition in 2001 where the goal was to make a program in C to generate the largest number you can. For more on it see 14. Twenty-one 21 21 is notable in the English numeral system for being the first number name constructed from existing names. This is somewhat important in googology because the term "googolism", albeit a broad term, more often than not refers to a specific unique name for a number, and twenty-one is the smallest nonnegative integer that does not get a unique name in English - therefore in some sense twenty-one is the smallest nonnegative integer name in English that is not a googolism. Sbiis Saibian has further discussed the meaning of the term "googolism" on some of his Googology Wiki blog posts. See also grangolplex/googolcentiplex. 21 is also the 7th Fibonacci number, preceded by 13 and followed by 34 - for more on them see 89. It is also the value of S(3) in the frantic frog function, a variant of the busy beaver function in googology. The S function is noted S(n) (for more on it see 107), while the busy beaver function is noted Σ(n) or BB(n). 22 is the smallest Lychrel number in base 2, i.e. the smallest number in binary that will never become a palindrome if you take the number, add its reverse, and repeat the process - see 196 for details. In bases that are powers of two it's easy to see that some numbers are Lychrel numbers. In base 10 that has not been proven, though there are some candidate base-10 Lychrel numbers, the smallest and best known of which is 196.
Twenty-two is the exact value of a very small googolism coined by Googology Wiki user SpongeTechX using a notation he invented called copy notation. The number is called dumevalka, and it's defined as 2[2,2]. This solves solves to 2[[2]] (a[b,c] = a[bc]b, where [b is [[..[[ with b [s) = 2[2] (a[bc]b = a[b-1a[b-1a[b-1.......[b-1a]b-1.....]b-1 nested c times, so this is 2[2] with two nestings) = 22 (a[b] = aaa.....aaa written as a number, with b copies of a, so this is two copies of two). It's an example of degenerate cases produced by two in googological functions, and in fact it mirrors the degenerate case of 4 in up-arrows, Conway chain arrows, and Bowers' arrays.
22 is also (as of August 2014) the smallest value for which the Busy Beaver function is known to surpass Graham's number - that is, BB(22) is known to be greater than G, but BB(21) and below may or may not be. Previously the smallest such value was 24; before that it was 25, and before that it was 64. Twenty-three 23 23 is the ninth prime number. It's notable for being the first one not to be part of a pair of twin primes (primes two numbers apart) or closer, since 21 and 25 are both composite. Such prime numbers are called isolated primes, but once you get to large enough numbers, the majority of primes will be isolated primes. Also, 23 is an example of a factorial prime, a prime one more or less than a factorial number, similar to primorial primes (see 29). The sequence of factorial primes begins 2, 3, 5, 7, 23, 719, 5039, 39,916,801.... 23 is the smallest prime number with the property that you can remove any digit and it's still prime - for more on that kind of thing see my entry for 137. Additionally 23 is the number of chromosome pairs in a normal human cell (see also 46).
23 is also a cult number noted largely for Illuminati associations and conspiracy theories, and a number I seem to randomly produce pretty often. For example, 23 is randomly chosen in the entry for 1, and a draft version of this list had -23 on the list but specifically excluded 23 (sorry people who like the number 23). Therefore 23 is my second favorite cult number behind 17. Gaz 23 ⅔ See 10^74. Twenty-four 24 24 is an example of a factorial number, a number that is the product of the first n positive integers. It's the fourth factorial, equal to 4*3*2*1. The nth factorial is denoted n!, and the sequence of factorials grows pretty quickly, starting with 1, 2, 6, 24, 120, 720, 5040, 40,320 ... Factorials have many applications in mathematics, in combinatorics and elsewhere. The most well-known is that n! denotes the number of ways you can arrange n objects in order - for example here are the 24 (4!) ways to arrange 4 objects: ABCD ABDC ACBD ACDB ADBC ADCB BACD BADC BCAD BCDA BDAC BDCA CABD CADB CBAD CBDA CDAB CDBA DABC DACB DBAC DBCA DCAB DCBA The factorial is a classic example of what the non-googologists see as a fast-growing function, and therefore it's part of the layman's toolbox for generating large numbers. Some googolisms are defined with factorials like the googolbang, and Lawrence Hollom has developed a powerful (yes, powerful even by googology standards) notation to extend the factorial function into the realm of googology. 24 is also a highly composite number since it has more divisors than any smaller number. Its non-trivial divisors are 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 12. There are quite a lot of things that are grouped into 24, similarly to twelve. For example, there are 24 hours in a day, food and bottles are often packaged in groups of 24, sports teams often come in groups of 24, and purity of gold is measured on a scale of 0 to 24 carats. 24 is the name of a popular game where you are given four single digit numbers and you need to use three steps with addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division to turn them into 24. The choice of 24 was probably motivated by the fact that 24 has a lot of divisors for its size.
Personal: For a time, when I didn't have a solid decision on my "favorite number", 24 was my favorite number (probably because of the game) - I switched back and forth between several numbers before settling on a childhood favorite as my "favorite number", 7. Twenty-five 25 25 is the fifth square number (5^2), and this list's example of a square number. Square numbers are numbers that can be expressed as a number multiplied by itself, or as x^2 (pronounced x squared), and are named like that because square numbers of objects can be arranged in a perfect square - for example here's a square of 25 o's: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o The first 20 square numbers are: 1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81 100 121 144 169 196 225 256 289 324 361 400 See also cubic numbers at 125 and perfect powers in general at 16. 25 shows up quite often in life, being a quarter of 100 (see also 50). For example, many currencies have a 25-cent coin, and 25% is one of the most used percentages (see 1/4). 25 is the smallest square that is a sum of two squares: 25 = 52 = 32+42. However, this property isn't too special - it's more interesting that 25 is a square that is a sum of two consecutive squares because that property is rare. The first few squares with that property are 25, 841, 28,561, 970,225.... 25 is also the smallest (and only two-digit) Friedman number. A Friedman number is a number whose digits can be rearranged with mathematical operators to produce the original number. In 25's case, 25 = 5^2.
Twenty-six 26 26 is the only number that falls directly between a perfect square (25) and a perfect cube (27). It also might be the one and only number that falls directly between a pair of perfect powers, though this hasn't been proven - proving that kind of thing is quite difficult. For example, not until 2002 was it proven that 8 and 9 are the only pair of perfect powers that neighbor. It's been conjectured that for any integer n there's only a finite number of pairs of perfect powers that differ by n, though as of yet that hasn't been proven. 26 is also the number of letters in the Latin alphabet. They are abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, making 26 somewhat culturally significant, such as in combinatorics with things like codebreaking. Powers of 26 also appear sometimes in everyday combinations, e.g. 263 = 17,576 possible three-letter acronyms. Because there are 26 letters in the alphabet, 26 had some significance to me as a kid, since when I was 1 to about 6-7 years old the alphabet was pretty much my favorite thing in the world. (pointless fact: 26 is called "lel" in Sbiis Saibian's experimental unique name system for numbers, which pretty much explains why such systems don't work. This connects to me because for a while I tended to use "lel" in place of "lol". By the way, 28 is called "lol" in that system.) Twenty-seven / Booga-three / Fzthree 27 27 is equal to 3^3, the third cube. It can be defined with tetration as 3^^2 but is much too small to even be a small tetrational number, not even a good exponential number. Related to being the third cube, it's the smallest odd composite number that is not a semiprime. 27 has an interesting property relating to cubes - the digits of 27^3 (19,683) add up to 27 (1+9+6+8+3 = 27). 27 is the largest number with this property, and 8 is the smallest (not counting the trivial cases of 0 and 1). - 17, 18, and 26 also have this property. It's especially interesting that 8 and 27, the smallest and largest number with this property, are themselves cubes.
27 used to have a notable property in Bowers' array notation that is now held by a googolism called tritri - {3,3,3} in Bowers' array notation once was 3^3, but it's now equal to 3^^^3 since Chris Bird suggested to make {a,b} solve to ab instead of a+b. See ultatri for an example of 27's occurrence in Bowers' arrays. 27 is still is a very prominent number when working with threes in googology (example: 3^^^3 is a power of 3^27 threes), especially often in chained arrow notation (see part 2 of this list for examples). This is because the quirks of chained arrow notation give rise to exponents in the middle of each other - for example, 3->3->2->2 solves to {3,3,27} in Bowers' arrays. See my article on Conway chain arrows for further information. With the fz- prefix which takes a number to the power of itself, 27 can be named fzthree. Sbiis Saibian coined a prefix called booga-n, meaning n^n-2n, or n n-ated to n in terms of hyper-operators. With that function, 27 can be represented as booga-three. For more on the booga- prefix read here. See also booga-four. 27 is also another cult number, and it's Robert Munafo's favorite as he discusses on his number list - he says that he "notices it a lot more than he 'should'" and puts some 27-based numbers on his list just for the sake of 27-based numbers. These three links are a few 27-based cult number websites, and this page (which gives a far far better covering of 27 than my entry does) might as well count as one. An example of the cult of 27 is the 27 club in music - the 27 Club consists of the many musicians (like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, etc, etc) who died at the age of 27, giving rise to some speculation. 27's cult status actually dates all the way back to Roman times where it was important in certain places. Personal: 27 is part of the product 41*27 Twenty-eight 28 28 is the second perfect number. It's a perfect number because it's equal to the sum of its factors, which are 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14. The previous perfect number is 6 and the next is 496 (see that entry for more on perfect numbers). 28 is also used as an approximation for the number of days in a lunar month, which matches nicely with the designation of 7 days in a week. Twenty-nine 29 29 is the tenth prime number. It's twin primes with the Mersenne prime 31, and it's a primorial prime as well. A primorial prime is a number one more or less than a primorial (see 30 for more). 29 is the number of notches on the Lebombo Bone, a 35,000-year-old bone in Africa that was the first known documentation of numbers. It was clearly used for counting something from the notches in the bone. For more on the bone see my large number timeline. It's also the smallest number x such that Graham's number cannot be written as a power tower of x's (not)
Thirty 30 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Thirty is the product of the first three prime numbers (2*3*5). Products of the first n prime numbers are known as primorials, and n primorial (the product of all primes less than or equal to n) is sometimes denoted n#. 30 is a common number for dividing things evenly, since it can be divided evenly into twos, threes, fives, sixes, and tens, and it forms two primorial primes (29 and 31). However it's not a highly composite number.
Thirty is also the largest number with the property that all smaller numbers that are relatively prime to it (i.e. have no factors in common with 30) are prime.
Thirty-one
31 Thirty-one is a prime number with several interesting properties. It is perhaps most notable as the third Mersenne prime (M5 = 2^5-1), since Mersenne primes are known to be the easiest way to find very large prime numbers. It's also a primorial prime, along with 29. 31 is a member of the primeth recursion sequence, a sequence defined as PR(1) = 1 and PR(n+1) = the nth prime number. The first few values of the primeth recursion sequence are 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, 31, 127, and 709. The sequence is the nth term sequence for the prime numbers - see my page on the Ackermann function (which is closely related to such sequences) for details. Interestingly, two consecutive members of that sequence (31 and 127) are both Mersenne primes. 31 is the starting member of a sequence of similar-looking prime numbers that starts with 31, 331, and 3331, continues like this, and ends with 33,333,331. A similar sequence notable for being pretty long is discussed in the entry for 43.
31 also one of only two numbers that is a more-than-2-digit repunit prime in more than one base: it is 11111 in binary and 111 in base 5. The only other number with this property is 8191. Thirty-two / Binary-eyelash mite 32 This number, due to being a power of two (second penteract), has sort of a digital feel to it. This is because computers run on binary digits, and therefore basing things on powers of two is often most convenient. A direct example of 32 in computing is the system32 folder and 32-bit.
32 is the third member of the sequence 11+22+33 ... +nn, expressible as 11+22+33. 32 seems to be the largest perfect power in the sequence, but honestly that's just a guess. 32 is also notable in science as the freezing point of water in degrees Fahrenheit. For more temperature related numbers, see -40, 37, 98.6, 212, and 273. 32 is the exact value of a very small googolism by Sbiis Saibian - it's called binary-eyelash mite. Since an eyelash mite is defined as 2*10^4, a binary-eyelash mite can be thought of as being 2*2^4, which evaluates to 32. See binary-small fry, another small googolism by Saibian, for more on that. Thirty-three 33 33 is the smallest number in the first semiprime triplet (as I call it): a semiprime triplet is a set of three neighboring integers that are all semiprimes: 33 = 3*11, 34 = 2*17, 35 = 5*7. The next semiprime triplet is (85, 86, 87), followed by (93, 94, 95) and (121, 122, 123). Semiprime quadruplets are impossible because one of the four consecutive numbers must be divisible by 4, which means that it's necessarily a number that is not a semiprime. For similar groups but with prime numbers, see 47, 211, and 251. As a consequence of Fermat's Little Theorem, if p is a prime other than 2 and 5, (10^(p-1)-1)/p is a whole number. 33 is the smallest number that can be generated with that formula: here, p = 3, so plugging 3 in gives us (10^(3-1)-1)/3 = (10^2-1)/3 = (100-1)/3 = 99/3 = 33. This formula sometimes forms cyclic numbers (33 is not cyclic) - for more on that, see 142,857. Thirty-four 34 34 is the eighth Fibonacci number. It's the middle number in the first semiprime triplet (see 33), and as such it's the smallest number with the property that it and its neighbors have the same number of divisors. It is also known as part of an Internet meme, Rule 34, which states that "if it is on the Internet, there is porn of it, no exceptions". Similarly, Rule 34 of googology (jokingly stated by Sbiis Saibian) states that if it is a googolism, there is a salad number for it. A few salad numbers are on later parts of this list. Thirty-five 35 35 is the the largest number in the first semiprime triplet (see 33). It's also an example of a 5-rough number. N-rough numbers are the antithesis of n-smooth numbers, because while a n-smooth number only has prime factors n or smaller (e.g. 48 and 81 are 3-smooth numbers), a n-rough number only has prime factors n or larger. 3-rough numbers are just a synonym for odd numbers, and the first few 5-rough numbers are 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 25, 29, 31, 35, 37, 41, 43... - notice how a lot of them are prime numbers. Also, 35 is the number of hexominoes (polyominoes made fron six squares, picture below).  36
36 is 6^2, the sixth square number. It's also the 8th triangular number and the smallest number (aside from the trivial case of 1) to be both a square number and a triangular number. Such numbers are called square triangular numbers, and they are quite rare: the first few are 1, 36, 1225, 41,616, 1,413,721... 36 is also an example of a number which is highly divisible, as it can be divided by two twice and by three twice - its nontrivial factors are 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18. It's a record-setter in the number of factors, being the first one to reach seven non-trivial factors. These record-setting numbers are called highly composite numbers. The first few such numbers are 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 120, 180, 360, 720, 840, 1260, 1680, 2520, 5040... and they tend to be very popular numbers for dividing things in (e.g. 24 hours in a day, 60 seconds in a minute and minutes in an hour, 360 degrees in a circle) - see also 12, which a famously large number of things are grouped in. 36 is the largest highly composite number to be a perfect power - the only other one (other than the trivial case of 1) is 4. Thirty-seven 37 37 is the twelfth prime number. It's also equal to hydra(3), the last trivially sized value of the Kirby-Paris hydra function. The hydra function is defined using a single-player game which has a few simple rules: - Start with a finite sequence of matched parentheses such as (()(()(())((())))). - Pick an empty pair () and a natural number n. 1. Delete it. 2. If its parent is not the outermost pair, take its parent and append n copies of it. The parent of a parentheses pair is the innermost pair of parentheses that encloses the pair and fully encloses all parentheses within the pair, and all that is within that pair. For example the parent of the bold pair in (()(()(())((())))) is the the red parentheses in (()(()(())((())))).
Then hydra(n) is defined as the number of steps it takes to reduce a hydra (((...((()))...))) with n pairs of (), always picking the rightmost pair of () and using 1 as n on the first move, 2 on the second move, etc. Hydra(0) = 0, Hydra(1) = 1, Hydra(2) = 3, Hydra(3) = 37, and Hydra(4) and beyond are very very large.
Unlike the busy beaver function, the hydra function is computable, with a growth rate of epsilon-zero in the fast-growing hierarchy. See also 51.
1/37 is 0.027027027.... and 1/27 = 0.037037037.... - this nice relationship is because 27*37 = 999.
Thirty-seven was another entry in my "Very Important Numbers" list. This one was because 37 multiplied by 3, 6, 9, 12, etc. produced 111, 222, 333, 444, etc. Mathematicians would find this property trivial, but I found it cool at the time that such a random (37 is psychologically random) number could produce repdigits (and that's also related to the correspondence between 1/27 and 1/37). 37 remains one of my favorite two-digit numbers, though I don't seem to pay attention to it as much as I do for 17, 43, and 79. Because 37 is a factor of 111, it has an interesting divisibility test: 1. If the number is longer than 3 digits, divide it in groups of 3 digits starting from the right, e.g. 47,356,892 -> 47, 356, 892 2. Add the groups together, e.g. 47+356+892 = 1295 3. If the result has more than 3 digits, repeat the process - doing that gives you 296 When the number no longer has more than 3 digits: 1. If it's 1-2 digits, it's divisible by 37 if it's 37 or 74
2. If it's a 3-digit repdigit, then it's divisible by 37. 3. Otherwise, subtract the number from the nearest multiple of 111, and if the result is 37 or -37 then the number is divisible by 37. Here, we find that 333 is the closest multiple of 111 to 296, and 333-296 = 37. This means that 47,356,892 is divisible by 37. In science, 37 is the normal body temperature in degrees Celsius. For other temperature related numbers, see -40, 32, 98.6, 212, and 273. I consider 37 to be the quintessential psychologically random number because 37 is said to be the number people are most likely to choose when asked to name a number from 1 to 100. It's one of the survivors when we filter out the non-random numbers with this process: First we can remove all the single-digit numbers, leaving 91 numbers left. Then, we can delete the multiples of 10, leaving 81 left. After that, we can get rid of the even numbers, removing 36 numbers and leaving 45. While we're at it we can remove the repdigits as well, leaving us with 40 numbers, Even the numbers that end in 5 can be removed, leaving left 32 numbers (13, 17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 29, 31, 37, 39, 41, 43, 47, 49, 51, 53, 57, 59, 61, 63, 67, 69, 71, 73, 79, 81, 83, 87, 89, 91, 93, 97). To narrow down further, we'll need to make further observations: the remaining numbers all end in 1, 3, 7, and 9. Of these, the most random ending digit seems to be 7, leaving us with 17, 27, 37, 47, 57, 67, 87, and 97. Of those, we'll now want to focus on size. We use and think about the smaller ones in our daily life more often than the larger ones. The larger numbers are less likely for us to think of, and the smaller ones are so common that they don't seem random. 37 is just the right combination of "large enough to be random" and "small enough to be random". And that, is how you get 37 as the "most random" number (though some give the honor to 47).
As it turns out, 37 is a cult number as well, like on this website. The property I noted in my Very Important Numbers list happens to be one of the many many properties listed on the website. Thirty-eight 38 38 is an example of a psychologically random even number, for reasons similar to 37. It's also part of a twin semiprime pair with 39. 38 is also the largest even number that can't be written as a sum of odd composite numbers. When writing each number that can be expressed in Roman numerals (i.e. numbers 1 to 3999) and alphabetizing them, the last Roman numeral would be 38 (XXXVIII). Thirty-nine 39 39 is infamous as part of a claim that 39 is uninteresting: it was claimed to be the "smallest uninteresting positive integer, which makes it especially interesting" in the first edition of David G. Well's book The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers (a list of numbers with notable properties much like Robert Munafo's). In response, some people gave connections between 39 and the famed number 666, but that isn't all that special since so many other numbers have been connected to 666 (like 1998). But Wells wasn't aware that 39 did indeed have an interesting property. What is that property? 39 is the sum of a sequence of consecutive primes (3+5+7+11+13) and the product of the first and last numbers in the sequence (3*13). Very few numbers have this property - the only other numbers known to have that property are 10, 155, 371, and 4,545,393,575,304,421. That property was noted as early as 1999, in an old version of Robert Munafo's number list which was a lot shorter than his modern list. In the second, revised and expanded edition of his book, Wells added that property to 39, and his first uninteresting number is instead 51. As a side note, the largest number in his book is Graham's number. Forty 40 o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o This number is close to the limit of our secondary number sense. It’s getting a bit tough to accurately visualize, say, forty people in a bus. This number is spelled differently from what we might expect, “fourty”. This number’s prefix is tetraconta-, but by now you won’t see these prefixes outside of lists. Take a guess what the prefixes for fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety are. Forty appears many times in religion, particularly with periods of forty days. For example, Lent is noted as the forty says before Easter. It also appears in the phrase "forty acres in a mule" which refers to what freed slaves hoped for after the Civil War, a promise that was unfulfilled. Forty is also the only number whose English name has the letters in alphabetical order. Forty-one 41 41 part of an interesting formula discovered by Leonhard Euler (x^2+x+41) that will always output a prime number when x is between -40 and 39, inclusive, and for some other values as well. Another way to think of the formula is: 41 is prime Add 2, 43 is prime Add 4, 47 is prime Add 6, 53 is prime Add 8, 61 is prime Add 10, 71 is prime Add 12, 83 is prime etc, you can continue the pattern 39 times. This is interesting because the formula, unlike others which are a bit more wide ranged, is easy to remember. In fact, it's the most widely ranged prime-generating polynomial that is easy to remember. After this formula was discovered, people wondered if there were polynomials that would always generate primes for any integer input - this was proven impossible. 41 is also the next prime after 19 to be part of a twin, cousin, and sexy prime pair - not a lot of prime numbers have this property. Personal: 41 is part of the product 41*27 Phiplex 10^((1+√5)/2) ~ 41.4986... Since x-plex can be thought of as 10^x because a googolplex is 10 to the power of a googol, we can call 10^phi (phi is the golden ratio) phiplex - it's a relatively small number (less than 100), but can be considered a googolism nonetheless. Forty-two 42 Forty-two is famous for being calculated as the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which many people interpreted as the meaning of life or similar. Therefore, 42 is a very culturally significant number. It's an example of a number whose reputation has been swamped into one strong association due to pop culture. As a result, 42 is a famous cult number - as with numbers like 666, many people have tried to use real-world connections to 42 to deduce why 42 is the "meaning of life". Despite all those theories about 42, Douglas Adams, author of the book that made 42 famous, said that all those theories are nonsense, and that he only chose 42 because it is an "ordinary, smallish number" - he thought of "42" as an ordinary smallish number to use and thought that'll do. But I think a particular reason he chose 42 is because 42 is a random number, but not too random like the psychologically random numbers 17 or 23 or 47, which already were large cult numbers - psychologically random numbers and cult numbers are strongly related. If the "meaning of life" was something like 17, then the cult of whatever number it would've been in the book would likely have a very different story. Before Adams, Lewis Carroll also referenced 42 several times in his writing, but he did not manage to get 42 to be a cult phenomenon like Adams did. For another number that appears in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, see the Hitchhiker's Number.
Forty-three 43 43 is a prime number that appears in an interesting sequence called Sylvester's sequence, a sequence that starts with 2 (or alternately 1, doesn't make a difference to the sequence), and each member of the sequence is the product of all the previous terms plus 1. It begins:
1, 2, 3, 7, 43, 1807, 3,263,443, 10,650,056,950,807... so the sequence grows very quickly, faster than even the factorial. In fact, it achieves hyper-exponential growth rates, which basically means that the number of digits grows exponentially - in this function's case, the number of digits in any term of the sequence is about twice the number of digits in the previous term. Another function that achieves hyper-exponential growth is the fuga- function. It is fairly easy to see that all the terms have no prime factors in common, and the sequence has been used in one of the many many proofs that there are infinitely many prime numbers. Another such proof involves showing that all the Fermat numbers have no prime factors in common. Another interesting thing about the sequence is that the reciprocals of its members (not counting 1) add up to one: 1/2+1/3+1/7+1/43+1/1807.... = 1. It's the fastest growing sequence whose reciprocals converge to a rational number. 43 can also start a sequence of primes by adding digits either from the right (43, 439, 4391, 43,913, 439,133, and 4,391,339) or from the left (43, 443, 8443, etc, up to 6,933,427,653,918,443), and is a record setter for length of said sequence when growing from the left (for two-digit numbers that is). 43 was also one of my childhood favorite numbers, and one of my most loved two-digit numbers as a kid (see also 79). This one's story is kind of weird: I believe it came from a VHS (see also 1107) to teach kids about math I watched several times in first grade. In one scene, the narrator listed the names of some prime numbers, and as he narrated each one, the number appeared in a different part of the screen, and it ended up being filled with about twelve primes. 43, for some reason, struck me as a funny number that I should pay attention to, probably because it was the last one they listed and/or because it's psychologically random, which always makes a number appealing. From then on I have often compulsively checked lists just to see what the 43rd entry is (ok I admit it, I still sometimes do that), among other things with the number 43. xkcd Booga-pi with Nayuta Ito's system ~43.825904 Remember booga-e, equal to about 10.30495? Well, with the same generalization of up-arrows you can make values like booga-pi, equal to pi{pi-2}pi, with {pi-2} indicating pi-2 (or about 1.14) up-arrows, which can be imagined as a hyper-operator just beyond exponents. Calculating booga-pi with that system is a lot harder than calculating booga-e, so I ran a program to calculate the value and got 43.825904 as the result. Forty-four 44 44 is an example of a subfactorial number, and the fifth one. The subfactorial (sometimes denoted !n) is a function similar to the factorial but not as quickly growing - it represents the number of ways x objects can be ordered such that none of them are in their original place. The sequence of subfactorials begins 1, 2, 3, 9, 44, 265, 1854.... For example, four subfactorial is equal to nine: the nine arrangements for four objects (A, B, C, D) such that none are in their original place are: BADC, BCDA, BDAC, CADB, CDAB, CDBA, DABC, DCAB, DCBA A way to imagine the subfactorial in real life is like so: Imagine that there are five people, each with one hat, who meet together to trade hats. Each person wants to end up with a different hat after the trading is over. Then, there are 44 ways this could happen, i.e. 44 ways such that in the end nobody has their original hat. Curiously, you can calculate n subfactorial easy with the surprisingly elegant formula [n!/e] where [n] is the nearest inteeger to n.
For another weaker version of the factorial see 420. Forty-five 45 45 shows up sometimes when working with degree measures of angles in geometry, because a 45 degree angle is halfway between a right angle and a fully closed angle. That angle is equivalent to slopes halfway between horizontal and vertical, and an example of such a slope is the slope of the function y = x. More notably, 45 is what Robert Munafo calls "the quintessential Kaprekar number": Kaprekar numbers are a special type of number best explained with an example: 45^2 = 2025, 20+25 = 45. Kaprekar numbers are numbers that have this property for squares. 999 is another Kaprekar number: 999^2 = 998,001, 998+001 = 999. 45 is also a Kaprekar number for cubes (45^3 = 91,125, 9+11+25 = 45) and fourth powers (45^4 = 4,100,625, 4+10+6+25 = 45). In fact it is the only known number that is a Kaprekar number for squares, cubes, AND fourth powers. The first few Kaprekar numbers are 1, 9, 45, 55, 99, 297, 703, 999, 2223, 2728, 4950, 5050, 7272, 7777, and 9999 - notice how they tend to be repdigits. 45 is also one of the numbers that appears in the ending loop when performing Kaprekar's routine (see 6174) on two-digit numbers - the loop is 45, 9, 81, 27, 63, back to 45, 9, 81, etc. Forty-six 46 The largest even number not expressible as a sum of two abundant numbers. Also the number of chromosomes in a typical human cell - 22 pairs of normal chromosomes and two sex chromosomes, with 23 pairs. Forty-seven 47 Forty-seven is part of an equally spaced group of 3 consecutive primes (47, 53, 59). That triplet is the smallest one after 3, 5, and 7; the next is 151, 157, 163; and a little after, such triplets become more common. See also 33, 211, and 251. 47 is also a strictly non-palindromic number. A strictly non-palindromic number is a number n that is not a palindrome (reads the same forwards and backwards, like 14,641) in any numeral base b, where 2≤b≤n-2 (that is, in any base from binary to base n-2). That means that in any base from binary to base 45 and all bases in between, 47 won't be a palindrome. The first few strictly non-palindromic numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 11, 19, 47, 53, 79, 103, 137, 139.... 47 is yet another cult number (for being psychologically random), one large enough to be an in-joke in some places. A few of its cult websites are this one and this one - one calls it the "quintessential random number", but I think 37 deserves that title more. The second website I listed seems to be for a university that has connections to 47 and lists other places where 47 is an in-joke. Forty-eight 48 48 is the number of known Mersenne primes, as of October 2014. It's also notable for having a lot of factors (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24), and it's another highly composite number. 48 is an example of a 3-smooth number, a number that has no prime factors greater than three. The first 3-smooth numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 15, 16, 18, 24, 32, 36, 48, 54, 64, 72, 81, 96, 108, 128, 144, 162, 192, 216...... In fact, it's a member of a sequence of 3-smooth numbers of the form 3*2^n that starts 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, 768...... these numbers all have a pretty large amount of divisors, and of these, 6, 12, 24, and 48 are also highly composite numbers. Therefore they occur in fields like display resolutions, e.g. 1024x768 my own desktop resolution. However no 3-smooth numbers larger than 48 are highly composite numbers. Forty-nine is the seventh square number. It's also the smallest number with the property that it and its neighbors are squareful (divisible by a square number other than 1): 48 = 12*22, 49 = 72, 50 = 2*52.
49 is sometimes given a connotation of luck since it's the square of a number (7) well-known for being considered lucky. For example, in Chinese culture the number 7 symbolizes togetherness, and therefore 49 is sometimes associated with good luck as well and used in some Chinese rituals. The Post-Secondary Range
50 ~ 99
Entries: 38
Fifty 50 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o = fifty o’s Now this number is about the ending of our secondary sense and the beginning of our tertiary sense. Tertiary number sense allows us to roughly visualize numbers and somewhat approximate them, but it’s significantly less accurate than our secondary sense.
Fifty shows up a lot in real life in general, being half of one hundred (see also 25). For example, it's the number of states in the United States, and it's been that way since 1959. That value is unlikely to change soon, as it would be odd to deviate from that round number. Additionally there is the fifty-move rule in chess which states that if the game goes fifty moves (a move is a turn by white followed by a turn by black) without a pawn move or capture, the game ends with a draw. See 14,296. 50 is also the smallest number that can be expressed as a sum of two squares in two different ways: 52+52 = 12+72 = 50. See also 17, 65, and 1729. Fifty-one 51 The book where 39 was claimed to be uninteresting, in its second edition, instead has 51 as the first uninteresting number. For more on that see 39. 51 is notable in googology for being the value of Worm(2) - Worm(n) is a fast growing function in googology (growth rate epsilon-zero in the fast-growing hierarchy) invented by Lev D. Belkemishev. It is closely related to the Kirby-Paris hydra (see 37), but a little more complicated. The worm function is defined as how many steps it takes to reduce a chain of integers [n] down to an empty chain using a specific set of rules. Those instructions are made in such a way that it will keep on expanding unless conditions allow you to remove a value - therefore it can take very long to reduce a chain to an empty chain, but it will always take a finite number of steps. A chain [1] takes 3 steps to reduce to an empty chain, so Worm(1) is 1, and a chain [2] takes 51 steps to reduce to an empty chain. Not much is known about Worm(3) and higher values, except that they're very very huge. Fifty-two 52 Fifty-two is the number of playing cards in a traditional deck: four suits (diamonds, hearts, club, spade) multiplied by thirteen faces for each suit (ace, 2 through 10, jack, king, and queen). Therefore it has a bit of numerical significance, and shows up sometimes when working with combinatorics in card games (see 649,740). 52 is also usually given as the number of weeks in a year - that's an estimate, since dividing a year into 7 day weeks gives 52.14 weeks, 52.28 if it's a leap year. Fifty-three
53 53 is notable for being the first prime not to be part of a twin or cousin prime pair. Its two closest primes are 47 and 59, both of which are sexy primes with 53. The first prime not to be part of a twin, cousin, or sexy prime pair is my favorte 3-digit number 211. 53 is said to be a magic number relating to birthdays - the chance that no two of any fifty-three people in a room share their birthday is approximately 1 in 53. And 53 is also the number of bits used to represent the part before the exponent in the commonly-used double floating point format in computing - for more on that see the entry on the maximum value of that format, 1.7976*10^308. Fifty-four
54 54 is the number of stickers on a traditional 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube - therefore, it shows up sometimes in combinatorics with Rubik's cubes. This leads to some pretty big numbers, such as the number of ways to arrange the stickers of a Rubik's cube. Fifty-four is also the number of words in the English language used to name integers. They are: negative hundred zero ten thousand decillion vigintillion one eleven million undecillion googol two twelve twenty billion duodecillion centillion three thirteen thirty trillion tredecillion googolplex four fourteen forty quadrillion quattuordecillion five fifteen fifty quintillion quindecillion six sixteen sixty sextillion sexdecillion seven seventeen seventy septillion septendecillion eight eighteen eighty octillion octodecillion nine nineteen ninety nonillion novemdecillion (click on any number above to go to its entry, except for 80 which doesn't have an entry so it links to 81 instead) Up to 10^66-1, the naming is unambiguous, but after that it gets a little more uncertain - for a more on that, see the entry for a vigintillion. Fifty-five 55 Fifty-five is the ninth Fibonacci number. The next one is 89. It's also the tenth triangular number (sum of the integers 1 through ten), and it's the largest number to be both a Fibonacci number and a triangular number. Fifty-six 56 A Latin square is a x-by-x grid where each slot is filled with one of x numbers (or letters or colors or symbols or anything, doesn't matter) such that each row and has each number/symbol exactly once. For example, 4 3 1 2 2 1 4 3 1 2 3 4 3 4 2 1 is a Latin square. A reduced Latin square is a Latin square such that the first row and column have the numbers ordered. By rearranging the rows and columns, any Latin square can become reduced. For example, the square above can become a reduced Latin square if we arrange the rows and columns differently: 1 2 3 4 2 1 4 3 3 4 1 2 4 3 2 1 56 is the number of reduced 5x5 Latin squares - after that term, the number of reduced x*x Latin squares grows quickly, with 9408 reduced 6x6 Latin squares and 16,942,080 reduced 7x7 Latin squares. The number of non-reduced x*x Latin squares grow even faster. Latin squares are notable because of the well-known game Sudoku: all rows and columns in a Sudoku grid must have the each number 1 to 9 exactly once (with the added 3x3 box restriction). There are 6.67 sextillion possible Sudoku grids, and 5.524 octillion possible 9x9 Latin squares (Sudoku grids without the 3x3 box restriction). Also these squares are sometimes used in artistic designs, with different colors instead of numbers. 56 is also the largest number you can raise to its own power on most scientific calculators which overflow when reaching a googol. See also 69 and 449.
~56.961 57 is the first integer that, when raised to its own power, makes a number larger than a googol.
The number 57, for being a random-sounding number, has sometimes been jokingly referred to as a prime. For example, it's been called the Grothendieck prime because in a certain story, mathematician Adam Grothendieck gave 57 as an example of a prime number. It isn't acually a prime, as its factorization is 3*19. It is a semiprime though. 57 is also a number associated with Heinz ketchup (and sort of a cult number among its fans): H. Heinz, the founder, promoted his ketchup by lying that there were 57 varieties, and the number 57 is still printed on the ketchup bottles to this day. Heinz seems to still be attached to the number 57: for example, its 1934 cookbook had 57 recipes, and its headquarters are P.O. Box 57. Heinz 57 is even sometimes used as slang for a dog with mixed breeds, or a person from mixed ethnicities. Why was 57 chosen? Heinz said that he chose 57 because 5 was his wife's lucky number and 7 was his, and also because the number ends in 7, and numbers that end in 7 tend to be more appealing than other numbers. In his own words, Heinz said that seven was chosen largely because of "the psychological influence of that figure and of its enduring significance to people of all ages". (I'm telling you, numbers ending in 7 really do appear disproportionately often)
Number of degrees in a radian 180/π Radians are an alternate way to measure angles, used in higher mathematics. Unlike degrees, which ultimately were arbitrary in their choice of measurement, radians are very non-arbitrary - an arc of one radian has the same arc length as the radius of the circle. Therefore this number can be thought of as relating an arbitrary measure (degrees) to a non-arbitrary measure (radians). This number is equal to 180/pi, since pi radians is 180 degrees - it's easy to tell that the measure of radians relates directly to pi. Fifty-eight 58 58 = 2+3+5+7+11+13+17, the sum of the first 7 primes, and one less than the 17th prime number, 59. This means that 58 has connections with my favorite numbers 7 and 17. The first few numbers that are the sum of the first x primes are 2, 5, 10, 17, 28, 41, 58, 77, 100, 129, 160... Sums of primes seem to often have special properties - the case of 58 isn't too interesting, but there are some cool examples, like 39, 77, and 100. Fifty-nine
59 The seventeenth prime number (sorry I had to) Also, 59 is an example of a weak factorial prime, a type of prime number I coined in analogy to factorial primes and primorial primes. A weak factorial prime is a prime number one more or less than a weak factorial - the sequence starts with 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 59, 61, 419, 421, 839, 2521, but the next isn't until 232,792,559. It's interesting to note that all numbers neighboring a weak factorial (other than 1) are prime up to a certain point, but soon after, weak factorial primes become pretty sparse. See also 841. 59 is also the number of stellations of an icosahedron, counting the icosahedron itself as a stellation. Sixty 60 Sixty is a highly composite number, a number with more divisors than any smaller number.
60 is the "weak factorial of five", meaning it's the smallest number divisible by 1 through 5. It's also the weak factorial of 6 since 60, the smallest number divisible by 1 through 5, is already divisible by 6. See 420 for more.
60 was used as a base by the Babylonians, with a fairly intricate numeral system with 3, 10, and 30 all used as sub-bases. See my large number timeline for more. Because of that usage, there are 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour, making 60 important in everyday life. Sixty was a good choice because it is divisible by many numbers: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30 can all be divided into 60. Sixty-one / gagthree
61 Sixty-one is a weak factorial prime (see 59) and twin primes with 59, centered around the important number 60. More notable to googology, 61 is expressible as A(3,3) in the best known version of the Ackermann function. The Ackermann function is defined as follows: A(a,b) = b+1 if a = 0 A(a-1,1) if b = 0 A(a-1,A(a,b-1)) otherwise So A(3,3) begins solving as follows: A(3,3) = A(2,A(3,2)) = A(2,A(2,A(3,1))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(3,0)))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(2,1)))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(1,A(2,0))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(1,A(1,1))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(1,A(0,A(1,0)))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(1,A(0,A(0,1)))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(1,A(0,2))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(1,3)))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(0,A(1,2))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(0,A(0,A(1,1)))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(0,A(0,A(0,A(1,0))))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(0,A(0,A(0,2)))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(0,A(0,3))))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,A(0,4)))) = A(2,A(2,A(2,5)))) = A(2,A(2,A(1,A(2,4))))) ... and with continued iteration and iteration and iteration we eventually get to ... 61. If it takes that long just to get 61, then how are we supposed to even estimate higher values? Fortunately, there are actually easy mathematical formulas to make computing the Ackermann function much faster: A(0,n) = n+1 A(1,n) = n+2 A(2,n) = 2n+3 A(3,n) = 2^(n+3)-3 A(4,n) = 2^^(n+3)-3 A(5,n) = 2^^^(n+3)-3 etc. This makes computing A(3,3) a lot less of a hassle. The Ackermann function has a surprisingly innocent definition, and A(3,3) is not too bad of a number, but starting with A(4,x) it QUICKLY blasts into the stars - see my article on the function for more. 61 is a number expressible with the gag- prefix: gag(x) = A(x,x). Gagzero = 1, gagone = 3, gagtwo = 7, gagthree = 61, but gagfour, the next member of the sequence, is a FAR bigger number. Sixty-two 62 62 is a number whose square root has an interesting pattern of digits: it starts 7.874007874011811019685034448... - 11811 is 7874*1.5 and 19685 = 7874*2.5. Amazingly, this is not a coincidence, as it can be derived from some less surprising patterns of reciprocals - for an explanation of this read Robert Munafo's entry on the square root of 62. 62 is also the sum of the number of vertices, edges, and faces of both a dodecahedron and an icosahedron - that is, the number of vertices, edges, and faces of a dodecahedron adds up to 62, and same for an icosahedron. Sixty-three
63 63 is used in the defintion of each of the seven Fish numbers. The Fish numbers are a group of unusual googolisms coined by Kyodaisuu ("very large number" in Japanese) of Googology Wiki, who sometimes calls himself "Fish". He says he used 63 because he wanted his googologisms to be like Graham's number, but he said he doesn't remember why he used 63 and not 64. Here are links to the entries for each of the Fish numbers (except numbers 4 and 7, which will have entries when part 7 is released):
Fish number 1, Fish number 2, Fish number 3, Fish number 4, Fish number 5, Fish number 6, Fish number 7 Sixty-four 64 64 is a power of two (26), and therefore it's another number associated with computing, for example in the term 64-bit. It’s the 8th square, the 4th cube, and the second hexeract (6 dimensions). Therefore, it's the first number expressible as a power in three different ways. It can be shown that if a number is the first number expressible as a power in x ways, it's equal to 2 to the power of the first number to have x factors - in other words, these kinds of numbers are always equal to 2 to the power of a highly composite number. For numbers with similar properties, see 16, 81, and 4096. 64 may be best known in googology for showing up in the definition of Graham's number - Graham's number is the 64th member of Graham's sequence. That designation was not arbitrary - it had to do with the context of the problem where Graham's number arose, since there are 64 ways to color all the lines in a K4 red or blue (see here for what all that means) Sixty-five 65 65 is a number with interesting properties related to squares. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two different squares in two different ways: 65 = 42+72 = 82+12. See also 50. 65 is also the smallest number whose square is expressible as the sum of two different squares in more than 2 different ways: 652 = 162 + 632 = 332 + 562 = 392 + 522 = 252 + 602. This also means that 65 is the smallest number to be the hypoteneuse of more than different Pythagorean triples, i.e. an integer c that satisfies the equation a2+b2 = c2 where a and b are also integers. Another cool property of 65 is that it's the smallest number that becomes square if its reverse is added or subtracted to it: 65-56 = 9 = 32 and 65+56 = 121 = 112. Sixty-six
66 The number 66 currently holds the honor of being this list's first "uninteresting" number (that is, a number without properties I consider interesting enough to talk about). This is an arbitrary designation, since some people may find that I should talk about something interesting about 66. It's also a little paradoxical: is 66 made interesting by the fact that it's uninteresting? In any case, I won't go to other numbers just to label them as uninteresting. Robert Munafo's first uninteresting number is 74. 66 likely won't be this list's first uninteresting number forever, as I'm constantly finding more interesting numbers to talk about, or interesting things to say about numbers that are already listed here. For example, 44 was uninteresting until I decided to take note of subfactorials, 56 until I decided to discuss Latin squares, 58 until I added the idea of sums of primes, and 65 until I added some cool properties relating to squares. Sixty-eight 68 68 is the largest known number that can be written as a sum of two prime numbers in exactly two ways: 68 = 7+61 = 31+37. It's conjectured to be the largest. This closely relates to Goldbach's conjecture that all even integers above 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes, which is one of the most famous unproven conjectures in mathematics. 68 is also the 2-digit decimal string that appears latest in the digits of pi. 68 is the smallest composite number that becomes prime when you turn it upside-down, but that property is a coincidence that relies entirely on the glyphs used (see also 69).
Sixty-nine 69 69 is the largest number whose factorial you can take on a typical scientific calculator which overflows when reaching a googol - see also 70! in part 2, and 449, the equivalent number for more expensive calculators. 69 is also a number that has a notable popularity partially due to having a sexual meaning. This makes 69 another number which is almost entirely associated with a certain meaning (akin to 42). The digits 69 are the same when you turn them upside-down, making 69 a strobogrammatic number. That last property is why 69 (along with 96) were on my "Very Important Numbers" list as a pair of numbers. However, nowadays I don't consider this property all that special - it relies not only on the base but also on the glyphs used - therefore, really, a number being strobogrammatic isn't much of a numerical property at all. Nonetheless if an interesting number does happen to be strobogrammatic then that makes for a nice coincidence - see 99,066 for an example of this. 69 being itself written upside-down and its sexual connotation are the very properties that make it a cult number - see also 105 and 69,105. Seventy 70 Seventy is one of the numbers that appears down the the middle of Pascal's Triangle, a famous triangle in mathematics formed by continually adding numbers as the rows go down, starting with a 1: 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 3 3 1 1 4 6 4 1 1 5 10 10 5 1 1 6 15 20 15 6 1 1 7 21 35 35 21 7 1 1 8 28 56 70 56 28 8 1 etc. etc. etc. Each number is the sum of the two numbers above it except for the 1's. Pascal's triangle has many properties in mathematics. For example: - to find the number of combinations (not permutations) of x objects from y objects to choose from, look at the xth entry on the yth row. - the rows add up to powers of 2
- the (n+1)th row is the coefficients of (x+y)n when expanded as a polynomial - for example, (x+y)4 = x4+4x3y+6x2y2+4xy3+y4 - the 3rd numbers on each row are the triangular numbers, the 4th are tetrahedral numbers, the 5th are pentatope numbers (sums of the first x triangular numbers), etc - when converting each number in the triangle to black if it's odd and white if it's even, you get a fractal known as the Sierpinski triangle - the first few rows coincide with the digits of the powers of 11 - diagonals taking the last or second last number in a row and going down to the left such as the one colored red add up to the Fibonacci numbers - many many more Unrelated to that, the rule of 70 is sometimes used as an alternative to the rule of 72 because 70, unlike 72, is divisible by 5 and 7, and also because 70 works better as an approximation with lower percent increase rates - see 72 for details. 71
The number of ways two gliders can collide in Conway's game of life, a famous "game" in mathematics which I discuss in detail in another site of mine. Those 71 collisions are very diverse - some of them produce nothing, some of them turn into a block, a blinker, a traffic light, or whatever else, and some of them become methuselahs that take over 100 generations to stabilize. The collision that takes the longest to stabilize is the so-called two-glider mess, which takes 530 generations to stabilize. To find out what all this means look at my site on Conway's game of life.
Seventy-two is the first number that is a product of perfect powers but isn't itself a perfect power - numbers that can be expressed as products of perfect powers, whether they are or aren't themselves perfect powers, are called powerful numbers.
The number 72 is also significant in the rule of 72 in economics. The rule of 72 states that to approximate how long it takes for an amount of money to double, divide 72 by the annual percent increase. For example, if an amount of money increases by 2% each year, it'll take about 36 years to double, and if it increases by 12% each year, it'll take about 6 years to double. It probably isn't very surprising that 72 approximates a value here. However, it may be surprising that 72 approximates a value that varies - when the percent rates are low, it's about 69.3, or 100*ln(2). The value 72 approximates increases with the percent rate, and is closest value to 72 at around 8%. The real formula involves logarithms, and is a hassle to work with - that's why the rule of 72, which is so much simpler, is convenient in such scenarios. Seventy-three 73 73 and 37 are an unusual pair of prime numbers: 73 and its reversal 37 are prime, and 73 is the 21st prime while 37 is the 12th prime. This number had an appeal to me as a kid, for the same reason as 79, but for some reason 79 ended up being the "golden number" instead of 73. 75 is an example of a 5-smooth number, a number that has no prime factors larger than 5. The first few are starts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24, 25, 27, 30, 32, 36, 40, 45, 50, 54, 60, 64, 72, 75 ... and the 3-smooth numbers are a subset of the 5-smooth numbers. I have considered both 3-smooth and 5-smooth numbers since I was a kid (and to some extent 7-smooth numbers and higher), but I was surprised when I fairly recently learned that such numbers have their own name.
This is also the number of uniform polyhedra (see also 1849 and 8190), which Jonathan Bowers categorizes into the regulars (this includes the 5 Platonic solids and four others), truncates, quasiregulars, trapeziverts, omnitruncates, and snubs. Bowers discusses those and gives a short name for each on the polyhedron section of his website.
75 has also gained some cultural significance for being exactly 3/4 of the way to 100, and it is also a Keith number.
76 is an automorphic number, a number n such that n2 ends with the digits of n. In 76's case, 76^2 = 5776. The first few such numbers are 1, 5, 6, 25, 76, 376, 625, (0625), 9376, (09376), 90625 ...
In base 10, automorphic numbers (besides 1) follow an interesting pattern: for any number of digits n, there are exactly two automorphic numbers with n digits, one ending in a 5 and the other ending in a 6, and all automorphic numbers will themselves end in the digits of automorphic numbers. Observe the pattern: 6 is automorphic 76 is automorphic 376 is automorphic 9376 is automorphic 09376 is automorphic 109,376 is automorphic etc. If a number is automorphic, that means that not only its square ends in the original number's digits, but also its cube, 4th power, 5th power, etc: 76^2 = 5776 76^3 = 439,876 76^4 = 33,362,176 etc. Seventy-seven 77 77 = 2+3+5+7+11+13+17+19, sum of primes up to 19, and also 7*11, a product of consecutive primes. This isn't as interesting as the case of 39 though. 77 is allso, according to this webpage, the largest positive integer that can't be written as a sum of numbers whose reciprocals add up to 1, although it gives no explanation for this claim. Personal: 77 was another number I found appealing as a kid because its digits were all 7's, but not as much as numbers like 43 and 79. Seventy-nine 79 79 was yet another of my childhood favorite numbers, along with 7, 17, and 43. I think I liked this one because as a kid, I liked to associate each 2-digit number with a certain thought. Most were hard to put in words, but 79, for some reason, just felt cool and awesome (largely due to containing a seven). I have occasionally used the number 79 in Internet usernames and passwords as a kid. This is also the smallest whole number not to appear on Robert Munafo's list at all, which would have been horrifying for my childhood self. Eighty-one 81 81 is the ninth square and the third tesseract. It's also the second number expressible as a power in two ways (3^4 and 9^2, see also 16, 64, and 4096).
It's notable for being the square of the sum of its own digits, since (8+1)^2 = 81. That property applies to the largest 2-digit square number in any base (in base 10 that's 81). For more about the number 81, consult this article.
Eighty-three
83 83 is the number of right-truncatable primes in base 10 - a right-truncatable prime is prime number that, when you remove the rightmost digit, is still prime, AND remains prime each time you repeat the process. For more on such prime numbers, see 73,939,133, the largest such prime. Eighty-seven 87 The term "score" is an alternate term for twenty; its most famous usage is in the opening phrase of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, where he begins with "four score and seven years ago" to refer to 87 years ago at the time. Eighty-eight 88 88 is one the only known number in base 10 whose square doesn't have any isolated digits (i.e. digits that are not neighboring the same digit like 2 in 127 but not 4 in 144) - 88's square is 7744. It's also interesting that 88 itself has no isolated digits. 88 is also is the number of keys in a typical modern piano (36 black keys and 52 white keys) - therefore a piano is sometimes called an eighty-eight and a piano player is sometimes called "eighty-eight fingers". Of course, some pianos are made longer or shorter (particularly electric keyboards, which are commonly shorter), but 88 remains the typical number of piano keys. Eighty-nine 89 89 is the tenth number in the Fibonacci sequence, a famous sequence defined starting with 1 and 1, and with each of the next numbers being the sum of the previous two, so the sequence runs 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233... and the sequence has many applications and unusual properties. For example, the (n+1)th Fibonacci number (number in the sequence) counts the number of ways to express n as a sum of 1's and 2's, and every other Fibonacci number starting with 5 is the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with integer sides, i.e. the largest number in a Pythagorean triple. 89's reciprocal's first few digits coincide with the Fibonacci sequence: 1/89 = 0.011235955... because 1/89 = 0.01 + 0.001 + 0.0002 + 0.00003 + 0.000005 + 0.0000008 + 0.000000013..... This makes 89 an especially interesting Fibonacci number in base 10. Also, 89 = 81+92, sum of consecutive powers of its digits. It's the only two-digit number with this property - for more see 135. Consider the process of picking any number X, adding it to its reverse, and repeating the process until you get a palindrome (reads the same forwards and backwards). 89 takes an unusually long 24 steps to reach a palindrome. No number below 10,911 (other than the candidate Lychrel numbers which are not known to ever reach a palindrome) takes this many steps to get a palindrome. See 196 for more.
Ninety 90 The number of degrees in a right angle. I consider this as a cultural property instead of a mathemtaical property, since someone had to come up with designating a circle to be 360 degrees - see also 57.296... and 360. Ninety-one 91 Ninety-one is the second cabtaxi number (first is the trivial case of zero) - a cabtaxi number is similar to a taxicab number (see 1729). While a taxicab number is a number that is the first number expressible as a sum of two (positive) cubes in x different ways, a cabtaxi number is the first number expressible as a sum of two positiive, zero, or negative cubes in x different ways -in other words, the sum of difference of two positive, zero, or negative cubes. 91 is the second cabtaxi number since it's expressible as a sum/difference of two cubes in 2 different ways: 91 = 4^3+3^3 (64+27) = 6^3-5^3 (256-125). 91 has another unrelated property: it's sometimes been noted as a weird number in that it's the smallest number that seems prime but isn't (see also 57). Such numbers, according to one informal definition, are numbers that aren't divisible by 2, 3, 5, or 11 (2, 3, and 5 have easy divisibility tests, and 11's is a bit more involved but still pretty easy), and aren't square numbers. 91 is the first such number - it's a semiprime equal to the product of 7 and 13. It's very easy to think such a number is prime, but it's actually composite. Ninety-six 96 My childhood "Very Important Numbers" list had 69 and 96 listed together as one entry (both are themselves written upside-down). I barely started the 69 and 96 entry before forgetting about the "Very Important Numbers" list.
96 is also a 3-smooth number. Ninety-eight point six 98.6 98.6 is the normal body temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. For more temperature related numbers, see -40, 32, 37, 212, and 273. Ninety-nine 99 This number is notable in pricing to make products appear cheaper - for example, objects that are worth two dollars are usually priced as $1.99 so that it looks like it costs one dollar and a bit. It shouldn't work, but it does. This trick is called psychological pricing. 99 is also used in loader.c, the winning program in Bignum Bakeoff. It was used because it was the largest number usable with the 512-character limit. The output of loader.c is known as Loader's number.
Personal: 99 has appeared in a few screen names of mine because of my birth year. See 9^9 for more.
The Hundreds Range
100 ~ 999
Entries: 81
One hundred 100 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 100 is 10^2, the tenth square number and the square of our base. It's the sum of the primes up to 23, which is only interesting because they add up to the round number 100. 100 also is the smallest square number that is the sum of the first n primes. For more on sums of primes see 58.
Because it's the square of our base, 100 is one of the few numbers larger than 10 that gets its own unique word in almost all languages: for example "ekato" in Greek, "hundred" in English, "cent" in French, "bai" in Chinese, "sto" in Russian, etc. A hundred is the smallest number most of us learn as being a big number. It seems to be just the right number to use as one that we can easily call large, but is still humanly attainable. Therefore it's a very appealing and commonly used large number (for example, top 100 lists or surveys of 100 people). Furthermore, until early 2013 Googology Wiki did not allow numbers smaller than 100 to get their own pages, showing that 100 is, in a sense, the smallest "large" number. However some believe that the smallest large number should be a million, and Sbiis Saibian argues that a large number should simply be any number larger than 1 (see my entry for 1 and this blog post by Sbiis Saibian for details). Related to that, 100, is also a very common number in googology. For example, a googol is 10100 and a googolplex is 1010^100, and because of that many googologists have created analogous numbers based on 100 (for example grangol or boogol).
The SI prefixes for 100 are hecto- (from Greek) and centi- (from Latin), the latter of which is used in several words in English such as percent, century, centillion, or centipede.
One hundred one 101 101 is the first 3-digit number that is itself written upside down, and the first prime after 100. It appears in book titles similarly to 1001. 101 also has small claims to fame in things like 101 Dalmatians, beginner courses, the name of a highway, and so on. One hundred five 105 105 is an example of a double factorial, a member of a sequence of numbers that, despite the name, grows slower than factorials. X double factorial (noted x!!) is defined as x*(x-2)*(x-4)*.....4*2 if x is even, or as x*(x-2)*(x-4)*.....5*3*1 if x is odd, so 105 is equal to 7 double factorial. The first ten double factorials are 1, 2, 3, 8, 15, 48, 105, 384, 945, and 3840. 105 is also a highly composite odd number, an odd number that has more divisors than any smaller odd number. For more on highly composite odd numbers see the entry for 225. It has been shown that if there are any odd perfect numbers (which is doubtful yet uncertain), they cannot be divisible by 105. For more on odd perfect numbers see 10^1500, because it has been shown that if there are any odd perfect numbers they must be greater than 10^1500. And 105 also has connections with the number 69: 69 in base 8 = 105 in decimal, and 105 in decimal = 69 in base 16. This is significant in the Infocom in-joke number, 69,105. One hundred seven 107 107 is the value of S(4) using the frantic frog function, which is a sibling of the famed busy beaver function. 107 is the largest fully known output of the frantic frog function, since the higher values only have lower-bounds. While the busy beaver function denotes the largest number of marks a n-state Turing machine can make, the frantic frog function denotes the largest number of steps a n-state Turing machine can make. The frantic frog function is not as well known as and harder to work with than the busy beaver function.
Allan Brady proved S(4) to be equal to 107 in 1983, but doing that is not as easy as you might think. There are 25.6 billion possible Turing machines you need to test to find the value of S(4), so you need to rule out a lot of those Turing machines, and even that isn't a very easy task. One hundred eight
108 108 is the hyperfactorial of 3. The hyperfactorial is a more powerful variant of the factorial equal to n^n*(n-1)^(n-1).....*3^3*2^2*1^1. The previous hyperfactorial number is 4 and the next hyperfactorial number, 4 hyperfactorial, is 27,648. 108 has an unrelated property: it's the number of heptominoes, which are polyominoes made from seven squares. Heptominoes are the smallest type of polyomino which can have a hole, and the one with a hole is shaped like so: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ One hundred ten / eleventy
110 This number is sometimes called "eleventy". Using "eleventy" was made famous in Lord of the Rings, and since then it's sometimes been used as a joke. Eleventy is a notable example of non-standard English numbers. Eleventy is also sometimes used as hyperbole for any large number. It's often used together with an -illion number, either a real -illion (usually million or billion), or a fake -illion (like zillion, gazillion, bajillion, and more).
Personal: Numbers around the range 110-120 were the exit numbers of a nearby highway, which I memorized as a kid. One hundred eleven 111 111 is a repunit, a number whose digits are all one (see 1,111,111,111,111,111,111 for more), but not one that is prime. It is equal to 3*37, which means that it's involved in testing for divisibility by 37. One hundred thirteen 113 113 is an example of a permutable prime - a permutable prime is a prime number whose digits can be rearranged in any way and they're still prime. The digits 1, 1, and 3, no matter how you arrange them, produce a prime number: 113, 131, and 311 are all prime. Permutable primes are rare - they fall into three types: 1. Trivial cases (the single-digit and repunit primes - repunit primes are primes with no digits other than 1) 2. The two-digit emirps (I don't consider those particularly interesting) 3. The other permutable primes (by far the most interesting case - the only known ones are 113, 131, 199, 311, 337, 373, 733, 919, 991) It is conjectured that there are no permutable primes with four or more digits of type 3 - currently it is known that there are no such primes with 6*10175 digits or fewer. One hundred twenty / long hundred / twelfty 120 120 is equal to 5 factorial, or 5*4*3*2*1. It's both highly composite and superabundant. It's also one of only five numbers that are both triangular and tetrahedral (the largest is 7140). 120's divisors (other than itself) add up to twice itself. Such numbers are called 3-perfect numbers because the divisors of the number including itself add up to three times the number. 4-perfect numbers are numbers whose divisors (other than themselves) add up to thrice the number, and the sequence continues with 5-perfect, 6-perfect, etc. See also 496 and 30,240.
The word “hundred” used to have two meanings, which were 100 and 120, so 120 at that time was sometimes called “long hundred”. Analogous to eleventy for 110, 120 is occasionally called twelfty, but this usage is very rare. One hundred twenty one 121 121 is the eleventh square number. It's also the second Friedman number, since its digits can be rearranged to form 11^2 = 121. One hundred twenty five 125 125 is an example of a cubic number (and the fifth one), a number that can be expressed as x*x*x where x is an integer, also as x3 (pronounced x cubed) with exponents. They're named so because a cubic number of objects can be arranged in a perfect cube. For example, here's what a cube of 27 (33) objects looks like: layer 1 layer 2 layer 3
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Here are the first 20 cubic numbers: 1 8 27 64 125 216 343 512 729 1000 1331 1728 2197 2744 3375 4096 4913 5832 6859 8000 See also 25 and 1729. 125 is also the third Friedman number, expressible as 51+2. It's also the only number known to have the property that all its divisors (1, 5, and 25) can be found within the number's digits. One hundred twenty six 126 126 is a member of a sequence of four consecutive Friedman numbers (125, 126, 127, 128). In this number's case, 6*21 = 126. One hundred twenty seven 127 127 is the fourth Mersenne prime. A Mersenne prime is a prime number of the form 2n-1, and a Mersenne number is any number of the form 2n-1: the nth Mersenne number (i.e. 2n-1) is noted Mn. Mersenne primes are famous because they're the easiest known way to test for very large prime numbers - since Renaissance times the largest known prime has almost always been a Mersenne prime (except in 1951), and the current record holder has over 22 million digits.
127 is a particularly special Mersenne prime because it's also the fourth Catalan-Mersenne number. A Catalan-Mersenne number is a member of the sequence 2, M2, MM2, MMM2, MMMM2, etc. The first four terms are 2, 3, 7, and 127. The next term (M127) is also known to be prime, but the next one after that is too large for any known primality test. It is conjectured that all Catalan-Mersenne numbers (or at least up to a certain limit) are prime. 127 is also a member of the primeth recursion sequence (see 31) - it's worth noting that two consecutive members of this sequence (31 and 127) are Mersenne primes. It's a Friedman number since 27-1 = 127. In computing, 127 is the largest number that can be stored as an 8-bit (also known as byte) integer. Byte integers are popularly used when you need to save space and you don't need numbers wider-ranged than -128 to 127. See also 32,767, 2,147,483,647, and 9,223,372,046,854,755,097. One hundred twenty eight 128 128 is equal to 2^7 or the second hepteract, and it's another nice digital number. It's the largest number that can't be expressed as the sum of two or more distinct squares, meaning that all numbers larger than 128 can be expressed as the sum of at least two different squares. 128 is the largest power of 2 whose digits are all themselves powers of 2. See also 2048.
128 is also a Friedman number since 28-1 = 128. Many of the Friedman numbers are perfect powers.
One hundred thirty five 135 135 = 11+32+53, sum of consecutive powers of its digits. After the trivial cases of 1-digit numbers numbers with this property are quite rare - they start with 89, 175, 518, 598, 1306, 1676, 2427, 2,646,798, and the next and largest is 12,157,692,622,039,623,539 (12.157 quintillion) - yet another case of sequences starting humble then jumping to huge values. See also 80,313,433,200 and 33,550,336 for other examples of this. For another number with a similar property (that happens to be its digits rearranged), see 153, which is the sum of the cubes of its digits. A n-almost prime is a composite number equal to the product of n prime numbers - note that 1-almost primes are a synonym for prime numbers and 2-almost primes are a synonym for semiprimes. Among any sequence of x-almost primes for a specific x, at some point or another the terms will eventually mostly become deficient numbers, no matter how much the sequence seems to start off with a majority of abundant numbers. 136, in this case, exemplifies this - among the 4-almost primes, the deficient ones start 16, 81, 135, 136, 152, 184, 189, 225, 248, 250, 264, 270 - note how such numbers start out as rare among 4-almost primes, but soon become common. This goes to show that even though numerical properties often seem closely related because of related definitions, correspondence is often a lot harder to find than you think. One hundred thirty-seven 137 137 is, for starters, a prime number, twin primes with 139, and sexy primes with 131. The digits 1, 3, and 7 are as prime a set of three digits can get - 3 and 7 are primes, all arrangements of two digits of 1, 3, and 7 (13, 17, 31, 37, 71, 73) are prime, half of the 3 digit numbers made from the digits 1, 3, and 7 (137, 173, and 317) are prime, and 113, 131, 311, 313, 373, 733, and 773 are also prime. You can remove any digit from 137 and end up with a prime number, even if you rearrange the digits. No other 3 digit number other than the other permutations of the digits 1, 3, and 7 has this property. But 137 is by far best known for being very close to the the fine-structure constant (technically its reciprocal, but expressing it as about 1/137 rather than 0.007299 is often preferred), an important constant in physics - it was once thought to be exactly equal to that constant. For that proximity to the important constant, 137 is a cult number among the physics community, given somewhat mystical significance. It's a particularly special cult number because of its connection to the physical world. In fact, many physicists have tried to find formulas for the exact value of the constant because it seems to be so special. This cult following has been alluded to in an xkcd comic (see 140). The number 137 is used on Robert Munafo's numbers page (in the introduction, not 137's entry!) as an example of how the properties of a number are ordered - in order, purely numerical properties unrelated to the use of base 10, properties specific to base 10 (or other bases), properties in the physical world outside of human culture, and properties in human culture. All four of these property types are in my entry for 137. Fine-structure constant ~137.035999074 This is the known value of the fine-structure constant in physics (see 137 and 140), sometimes referred to by the Greek letter alpha (α). It is of note that the fine-structure constant is unitless, meaning that the value does not rely on any man-made units - this makes the fine-structure constant especially special, largely accounting for its cult status. For more on the fine-structure constant, see this article by Robert Munafo which gives a detailed coverage of the constant and its cult. One hundred forty 140 One xkcd comic gives a table of approximations for various constants in science, some of which are on this list. The approximations are sorted from least to most accurate, starting from moderately accurate approximations and ending with approximations that are "within actual variation" (i.e. more precise than how they vary in the real world). They were found using a mix of trial-and-error Mathematica, and Robert Munafo's REIS tool, which is notable partly because Robert Munafo is a huge fan of xkcd. An odd thing in the table is that the fine structure constant is approximated as 1/140 instead of the more common 1/137, because the author (Randall Munroe) says that he has "had enough of this 137 crap", referencing 137's cult following. On an unrelated note, 140 is the character limit of tweets in Twitter, and a character limit in a few other places. Therefore the number 140 is sometimes associated with Twitter. One hundred forty four / gross 144 144 is 12^2, the twelfth square. This number, or a dozen dozen, is also called gross and is a relative of the term dozen for 12. 144 also the largest square Fibonacci number, and in fact it's the largest Fibonacci number to be a perfect power at all. The only other Fibonacci perfect powers are 8 and the trivial case of 1. One hundred forty five 145 145 is the sum of the factorials of this digits: 1!+4!+5! = 145. Only two numbers (other than the trivial cases of 1 and 2) have this property in base 10 have this property: the other is 40,585 (see that entry for more). One hundred fifty three
153 153 is an Armstrong number (also known as a narcissistic number), a n-digit number that is the sum of the nth powers of each of its digits - here, it's 1^3+5^3+3^3 = 153. There are a finite number of numbers with this property - the largest is a 39-digit number. Here's another cool property of 153: Take any number that is a multiple of 3, add of the cubes of the digits, and repeat the process. In the end you'll get to 153. For example: 19,683 13+93+63+83+33 = 1485 13+43+83+53 = 702 73+03+23 = 351 33+53+13 = 153 One hundred sixty nine / Baker's gross 169 169 is the thirteenth square number. It is involved in two formulas with a curious relation: the formula 13*13 = 169 can be have each number reversed to have another true formula, 31*31 = 961. Also, since 13 is also known as a baker's dozen and a dozen dozen (12*12) is also known as a gross (144), this is sometimes known as a baker's gross. One hundred eighty 180 A highly composite number. Also the number of degrees in a semicircle, and the sum of the degrees of all the angles in a triangle - see also 90 and 360. Therefore turning 180 degrees is synonymous with "turning around". One hundred ninety six / Poulter's gross
196 196 is 14^2, the fourteenth square number. More interestingly, it's the smallest candidate Lychrel number in base 10. What are Lychrel numbers? Consider this process: 1. Take any number x 2. Add x's reverse to x 3. If the result is not a palindrome (reads the same forwards and backwards like 14,641), repeat step 2 For example, take the number 4096. When doing the process, you get: 4096 + 6904 = 11,000 11000 + 00011 = 11,000 + 11 = 11,011, which is a palindrome A Lychrel number is a number that, when repeating the process described above, will never reach a palindrome. In some numeral bases Lychrel numbers are easy to find, but no numbers have been proven to by Lychrel numbers in base 10. 196 appears to be the smallest such number, as the process has been done 700 million times without creating a palindrome, though it is not known for certain if 196 will ever produce a palindrome with that process or not. See also 22, 89, and 10,911. Aside from that, 196 was given in the School House Rock song Elementary, My Dear, which discusses multiplying by 2, as an example of tricks to use when multiplying by 2 - 98*2 is given as an example of multiplying by two. The boy says "Aw, that's hard!", but his dad says it's very simple - you can take 100*2-2*2 = 200-4 = 196. In addition, since 14 is also known as a poulter's dozen and a dozen dozen is known as a gross, this is sometimes referred to as a poulter's gross.
197
197 is a Keith number, a m-digit number n which occurs in the Fibonacci-like sequence starting with the digits of n, and each number after that is the sum of the previous m numbers. In 197's case this Fibonacci-like sequence is:
1, 9, 7, 17, 33, 57, 107, 197...
Keith numbers are also known as repfigit (short for repetitive Fibonacci digit) numbers, an amusing name that obviously mirrors the name "repdigits" for numbers whose digits are all the same.
Two hundred
200 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 200 has the notable property of being the smallest number such that you can't change a digit to turn it into a prime number - this connects strongly with the gap between the counsecutive primes, 199 and the interesting number 211.
200 is also the base of all googolisms by Lawrence Hollom, the smallest being faxul which is the factorial of 200. Two hundred nine 209 209 is the first number one more or less than a primorial that is composite. If it was prime, it would be twin primes with 211. Two hundred ten 210 This number is the fourth primorial, equal to the product of the first four primes 2, 3, 5, and 7. The sequence of primorials begins 2, 6, 30, 210, 2310, 30,030 ... Also, this number is one less than 211 :)
Two hundred eleven 211 211 is another primorial prime, the first one not to be twin primes with another primorial prime. It's a pretty cool number in my opinion. Here's why: 23 is the first prime not to be twin primes with any prime, 53 is the first prime not to be twin or cousin primes with any prime, but what is the first number not to be twin, cousin, OR sexy primes with any prime? Turns out that it's a while till we encounter the first such number, and that number is 211. 211 isn't just not sexy primes with any prime - it's not 8-apart primes with any prime, or 10-apart primes with any prime. Its two closest primes are actually 199 and 223, making 211 part of a 12-apart prime triplet, and the first one not to be interrupted by any primes between, i.e. the first 12-apart prime triplet of consecutive primes. For numbers with related properties see 33, 47, and 251. I myself consider 211 to be a very interesting number (in fact it's my favorite three digit number), but other people, like Robert Munafo, clearly don't. Therefore I find 211 to be a good example of just how differently different people perceive numbers as interesting or uninteresting. Two hundred twelve 212 The boiling point of water in degrees Fahrenheit. For more temperature related numbers, see -40, 32, 37, 98.6, and 273. Two hundred sixteen 216 216 is 6^3, the sixth cube. It's called googoiji in the googo- naming system (see also 16 and 4096) and it's another Friedman number expressible as 62+1. Two hundred eighteen
218
218 is the largest known number of possible moves in any chess position that a player can make at any single turn. The position below, discovered by Nenad Petrovic in 1964, is an attainable position that comes from all 8 white pawns promoting to queens, allowing 218 moves for white:
 Note that black has no possible moves in this position, since capturing the bishop on b1 with the king would put it in check from the queen on e5, as would moving the pawn on b2. Figures like this can be used to upper-bound the number of possible chess games. See also 14,296.
Two hundred twenty 220 220 and 284 are the first and best-known pair of amicable numbers. A pair of numbers is amicable if one number's factors add up to the other number and vice versa. In this case, the factors of 220 (1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 55, and 110) add up to 284. At first amicable numbers are rare, but they soon become pretty common. Two hundred twenty five 225 225 is the fifteenth square number, and an example of a highly composite odd number. No, a highly composite odd number isn't an odd number that happens to be a highly composite number (the only such number is the trivial case of 1), but an odd number that has more divisors than any previous odd number. The sequence begins 1, 3, 9, 15, 45, 105, 225, 315, 945... and mirrors the sequence of highly composite numbers. Two hundred forty three 243
243 is the third penteract (5-dimensional cube), equal to three to the fifth power. Personal: In a book I had in first grade which I think was called "The Everything Math Puzzles Book", one activity showed a picture with a field of flowers, and you were supposed to wild guess and then educated guess the number of flowers. I wild-guessed 243 because I purposely wanted a random-sounding number, but I don't think I did the educated guess part. Two hundred forty seven 247 247 is the smallest positive integer that doesn't get its own Wikipedia article. Some numbers after it do though, the first of which is 251. Two hundred fifty one 251 251 is the first number in the sexy prime quadruplet, 251, 257, 263, 269. That group is the first group of four consecutive primes that are spaced an equal distance apart. See also 33, 47, and 211. Two hundred fifty five 255 Since 255 is one less than a power of 2, it sometimes appears in computing - for exasmple, the maximum number that can appear as an x in an IP address (x.x.x.x) is 255. Unrelated to that, 255 is the product of the first three Fermat primes (3*5*17) - therefore, a 255-gon is constructable with compass and straightedge (see 257). Two hundred fifty six / Fzfour 256 256 is another power of two associated with computers. It's the second octeract (2^8), the fourth tesseract (4^4), and the sixteenth square (16^2). 256 can be represented using Knuth's up-arrows as 4^^2, and this is therefore an extremely small tetrational number. It can be named "fzfour" with the fz- prefix, and it's also expressible as 2 in a square in Steinhaus-Moser polygon notation (see Steinhaus's mega for more) 256 is also the number of values that can be stored in a single byte in computing - for more on that see the entries for 2 and 8. Two hundred fifty seven 257 257 is a Fermat number, a number expressible as 22n+1 - the first few are 3, 5, 17, and 257 for n - 0, 1, 2, and 3. Among the Fermat numbers are the Fermat primes, prime Fermat numbers - the only known ones are 3, 5, 17, 257, and 65,537, and at least the next 28 are all known to be composite. However, it isn't known whether all Fermat numbers after 65,537 are composite. Fermat numbers relate to several few things in mathematics - for example, a regular polygon is constructible with a compass and straightedge if and only if the number is a product of a power of 2 and any number of distinct Fermat primes (including none). For example, a 33-gon isn't constructible because its prime factorization (3*11) contains a number that isn't two or a Fermat prime, but a 34-gon is because its prime factorization (2*17) consists only of two and a Fermat prime (17). This is also why 7 is the fewest sides of a regular polygon that can't be constructed with a compass and straightedge. An enneagon (9 sides) isn't constructible either, since 9's prime factorization (3*3) consists of the same Fermat prime (3) twice. Another curiosity of Fermat numbers: Convert each number in Pascal's triangle to 0 if it's even and 1 if it's odd. Then, the rows read out in binary are all the numbers that are Fermat numbers or products of distinct Fermat numbers, i.e. the odd numbers of sides of a polygon that are constructible without the restriction that the Fermat numbers need to be prime.
See also 4,294,967,295.
Two hundred sixty seven 267 This is the smallest positive integer that, when added to a googol (10^100), makes a prime number. That number, a googol plus 267, is called gooprol. Two hundred seventy three 273 273 is, to the nearest integer, the offset between the Celsius and Kelvin temperature scales - for example, 0 degrees Celsius (freezing point of water) is about 273 degrees Kelvin. The Kelvin scale is notable because 0 degrees Kelvin is exactly absolute zero, the limit of the coldest possible temperature. For more temperature related numbers, see -40, 32, 37, 98.6, and 212. 273.15 A more precise estimate for the offset between the Celsius and Kelvin scales. Two hundred eighty four 284 284 is the larger number in the first pair of amicable numbers (the other is 220), since 284's factors (1, 2, 4, 71, and 142) add up to 220, and vice versa. It's interesting to note that in an amicable number pair, the the smaller number (here 220) must necessarily be abundant and the larger one (here 284) deficient. Two hundred eighty nine 289 289 is the seventeenth square number. It's also a Friedman number expressible as (8+9)2. Two hundred ninety two 292 A continued fraction is a way to express an irrational number like so: a + 1/(b + 1/(c + 1/(d + 1/( ... ))) Many irrational numbers have nice continued fractions. For example, in e's continued fraction, a, b, c, d ... are 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 1, 6, 1, 1, 8 ... and have an obvious pattern. However, in pi's continued fraction, a, b, c, d ... are 3, 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 14 ... and have no apparent pattern - 292 is one of the first few numbers in that continued fraction. 292's appearance in the fraction 3 + 1/(7 + 1/(15 + 1/(292 + 1/( ... ))) is notable because when you chop off everything after 1/15 (i.e. 1/(292 + ... ), you get: 3 + 1/(7 + 1/15)) which simplifies to 355/113 = 3.14159292035..., a surprisingly good approximation for pi - the reason this approximation is so good is because the 1/(292 + ... ) is quite small, and therefore chopping it off leaves a number that is still quite close to pi. There are generalized continued fractions (continued fractions where the numerators need not be 1) that can express pi with a nice pattern, for example: 4/(1 + 12/(2 + 32/(2 + 52/(2 + 72/(2 + 92/(2 + ... ))) or: 2 + 2/(1 + 1*2/(1 + 2*3/(1 + 3*4/(1 + 4*5/(1 + 5*6/(1 + ... ))) and many others.
Some of pi's generalized continued fractions use the prime numbers. Three hundred 300 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
300 is notable as the largest possible score in bowling, and as the name of a famous movie which gave birth to the Internet meme "THIS IS SPARTA". It's another commonly used large number, since it's a round number and a multiple of 100. Three hundred three 303 303 is the number of zeros in a centillion - therefore, it appears in a few places in googology, mainly googolisms based on a centillion (see 10^10^303 for an example). Three hundred forty three 343 343 is the seventh cube (7^3) and a Friedman number expressible as (3+4)^3. As a kid I sometimes confused this number with 243, another perfect power. Three hundred forty eight 348 The School House Rock song Elementary, My Dear, which discusses multiplying by two and how easy it is, gives 2*174 as an example of what you can do - you can imagine it as 2*100 + 2*70 + 2*4 = 200+140+8 = 348. Three hundred sixty 360 360 is the number of degrees in a full circle - the number was chosen for two reasons: it has lots of divisors (divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120, and 180) and it's close to the number of days in a year (about 365). That property of 360 has found its way into product names such as the Xbox 360, and a trick in various sports where you rotate in a full circle. 360 is the subject of a purposely mathematically unsound joke that's sometimes used in Internet trolling: "Why is the Xbox 360 called the Xbox 360? Because when you see it, you turn 360 degrees and walk away." Turning 360 degrees would of course mean your orientation is the same as how it was when you started, and it should logically be 180 degrees. See also 144,000.
Three hundred sixty five 365 365 = 102+112+122 = 132+142, the smallest number expressible as a sum of consecutive squares in multiple ways. This number is culturally significant for being the number of days in a traditional year, an approximation for the time it takes for Earth to revolve around the sun, which is about 365.25 days. Because of that 365 has found its way into propduct names like Office 365.
365 also conveniently happens to be close to 360, a highly composite number that was chosen as the number of degrees in a circle.
Three hundred sixty six 366 366 is the number of days in a leap year, which occurs every four years to in place of a 365-day year to balance out the fact that Earth's orbit around the sun is a little longer than 365 days. In a leap year February has 29 days instead of 28. Three hundred sixty nine 369 369 is the number of octominoes (polyominoes made from 8 squares) - the number of x-ominoes as a function achieves exponential growhth, which is impressive by most people's standards but not by googological standards. Octominoes are notable for having all eight possible polyomino symmetries in at least one of the 369. Four hundred 400 400 is the twentieth square number (20^2). Here’s 400 o’s: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Also, 400 is the number of gradians in a circle - gradians are an alternate proposed measure for degrees such that a right angle is 100 units instead of 90. They have some applications in surveying with some convenience, but in many contexts they're less convenient, since 400 doesn't have as many divisors as 360, and it isn't even divisible by 3. Four hundred four
404 Error: This entry was not found Just kidding. 404 is one of the less immediate numbers with an infamous pop-culture meaning. This number is found in the famous web error code 404 meaning "page not found", and is the best known of all HTTP status codes. 410
The number of pages in any single book in the Library of Babel. See Borges' number.
Four hundred thirteen 413 This number is known in Internet culture as a regularly-appearing number in the megapopular unusual webcomic Homestuck, originating from it starting April 13, 2009, and appearing many times directly or indirectly.. Actually a lot of Homestuck connects with 413 because ... uh how to say this ... everything in it is in some way interconnected. There are other numbers that connect to it as well, each in a specific way, but 413 is the best known. The author notes that some of those arc number connections are happy coincidences. Four hundred twenty 420 420 is an example of a weak factorial. The weak factorial is a previously unnamed function I myself came up with in late elementary school as an alternative to the factorial that doesn't grow quite as quickly but retains many of its properties. I designed it to not grow as quickly because as a kid I (ironically) found large numbers hard to work with and therefore annoying. The weak factorial of x ( which can be noted as xw!) is the smallest number divisible by 1 through x, so the first few are 1, 2, 6, 12, 60, 60, 420, 840, 2520, 2520, 27,720, 27,720, 360,360, 360,360, 360,360, and 720,720. Some values of the weak factorial function repeat since the weak factorial only increases at prime powers, numbers that are either prime or can be expressed as a power of a prime number (like 16 and 3125 but not 36). Therefore there can be long times where the weak factorial function does not increase. 420 is the weak factorial of seven, meaning it's the smallest number divisible by 1 through 7. It's the smallest weak factorial that is not a highly composite number. However, 840, 2520, and 27,720, which are the next few weak factorials, are highly composite numbers, as is 720,720, but the next isn't until 80,313,433,200. But incidentally, 420 is far more well-known for being a number famously associated with marijuana culture, like in the phrase 420 blaze it. It originated probably from a high school using 4:20 as their meeting time to find an abandoned cannabis crop they learned about, and from there on 420 gained its famous association. 420 has become quite a cult number in that respect and it also happens to be exactly an order of magnitude above 42, which is also another famous cult number. 440 is a decently large number notable for its use in music: it is the standard frequency in Hertz of an A above middle C, unless your name is Toby Fox. A wave that vibrates 440 times per second, notated more concisely as "440 Hz", is typically used as a tuning standard for pianos and sometimes other instruments. Googology and music see a small amount of intersection. There have been some interesting record-setting cases of extremely long songs, but I can't be bothered to add such entries to this list; there's way too much debate surrounding that topic and what even counts as a "song". It's far too philosophical and fuzzy for my tastes. Robert Munafo discusses large numbers mentioned in music in his number list, such as the case of the trialogue. Some discussion on googology and music also came up on a Googology Wiki thread, leading to cool insight and also strange fundamental debates. One user humorously compared the buildup to the chorus in Gangnam Style, where the notes get faster and faster and then stop, to a type-ω limit point that you might see in those pretty spiral diagrams denoting the process for getting from 0 to ωω.
449 is the largest number whose factorial is less than 10^1000, and therefore the largest number whose factorial you can take on more expensive calculators that overflow at 10^1000. See also 69, the largest such number for most scientific calculators.
Four hundred eighty / Short ream 480 480 of something was the original value of a ream, a unit that now means 500 sheets of paper. Today 480 sheets is known as a short ream, while 500 is simply known as a ream. 472 and 516 have also been used as values of a ream. Four hundred ninety five 495 495 is the 3-digit equivalent of Kaprekar's constant (6174) - for more on that see the entry for 6174. It's one less than a perfect number, 496, but that's just a coincidence. Four hundred ninety-six 496 496 is the third perfect number, a number whose divisors (other than itself) add up to itself. In 496's case, its divisors are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31, 62, 124, 248, which add up to 496. The previous perfect number is 28 and the next is 8128 - such numbers are very rare. Perfect numbers have some curiosities of their own. For example, look at the prime factorizations of the first four perfect numbers: 6 = 3*2 28 = 7*22 496 = 31*24 8128 = 127*26 The prime factorization, in all cases, is a Mersenne prime times the largest power of two less than that prime, or in other words (2p-1)*2p-1, where p is a prime number. All Mersenne primes create a perfect number that way, and more recently it has been shown that all even perfect numbers have this connection to Mersenne primes. It is not known if there are any odd perfect numbers (see 10^1500). It is also not known if there are infinitely many perfect numbers - that would be proven true if it is proven that there are infinitely many Mersenne primes, but not vice versa. The largest known perfect number has about 34 million digits. You can see its entry on this number list here.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o ^ 500 o's. 500 of something (usually paper) is sometimes referred to as a ream (see also 480, the older value) and 500 is also the largest denomination of the euro. Five hundred twelve 512 512 is the second enneract (2^9) and the eighth cube (8^3). Since it's a power of 2, it's yet another number associated with computing. 512's digits add up to 8, its cube root. It's the smallest number with this property besides the trivial cases of 0 and 1. For more on that see 27 and 19,683. 512 is notable in googology for being the maximum number of characters allowed in the Bignum Bakeoff large number competition held in 2001, where the goal was to make as large a number as possible as the output of a program with 512 characters or less. It was the birthplace of some really big numbers, like Loader's number, the largest named computable number. Here's a list of the numbers that originated from Bignum Bakeoff from smallest to biggest:
pete-3.c, pete-9.c, pete-8.c, harper.c, ioannis.c, chan-2.c, chan-3.c, pete-4.c, chan.c, pete-5.c, pete-6.c, pete-7.c, marxen.c, loader.c Eplex / Eulerplex 10^e ~ 10^2.718 ~ 522.7353 This number is ten to the power of the mathematical constant e, dubbed "eplex" by myself and "Eulerplex" by SuperJedi224 of Googology Wiki. It's larger than its cousin phiplex (about 41.50), but it's still a smallish number. Six hundred 600 In the Latin language, sescenti (the word for 600) was sometimes used to mean any very large number, like zillion and gazillion in English. This is perhaps because 600 was a common amount of people in a Roman army. In some versions of the Bible, 616 appeared as the number of the beast instead of the far better-known 666.
Six hundred twenty five 625 625 is the fifth tesseract (5^4) and the 25th square (25^2). It's yet another Friedman number, expressible as 56-2 and it's also an automorphic number. Six hundred sixty six / Beast number 666 A famous number described in the Bible as representing evil, originally in a passage which went something like this: "Let anyone who has intelligence calculate the number of the beast, for it is a human number: this number is six hundred sixty six." 666, for this reason, is considered the mother of all "cult numbers". The passage where 666 is introduced as the beast number implies that 666 can be derived in some way, and many people have tried to find out how. 666 also appears a few other times in the Bible. See also 40 and 144,000. 666 has an uncanny amount of mathematical properties as well. For example, it is:
- the sum of the squares of the first seven primes - the 36 (6*6)th triangular number, making it the sum of all numbers on an American roulette wheel - the largest repdigit triangular number - a Smith number (666 = 2*3*3*37, 2+3+3+3+7 = 18 = 6+6+6) - equal to 1^3+2^3+3^3+4^3+5^3+6^3+5^3+4^3+3^3+2^3+1^3 - the sine of 666 degrees multiplied by negative 2 is equal to the golden ratio. There are many more. The number 666 has strange connections with the number 1998 which have caused people to think 1998 will be an apocalypse year - see the entry for 1998. Really, it doesn't just have connections to 1998 - pretty much all numbers have been linked to 666, e.g. 39 is linked to 666 because 39^2 = 1521, 15^2+21^2 = 666. Seven hundred twenty 720 720 is the factorial of 6 (6*5*4*3*2*1). It's a highly composite number, and the largest one to be 5-smooth. It's also the smallest number expressible as a product of consecutive integers in more than one non-trivial way: 720 = 1*2*3*4*5*6 = 8*9*10. It's also between 450 and 850, just letting you know.
Seven hundred twenty eight 728 728 is an example of a Smith number, a composite number whose digits add up to the same number as its prime factorization's digits do. The first few Smith numbers are 4, 22, 27, 58, 85, 94, 121, 166... Smith numbers were named by Albert Wilansky, who discovered this property in his brother-in-law Harold Smith's phone number. 728 is a Smith number because its prime factorization is: 2*2*2*7*13 (note that all powers of primes are expanded) and 2+2+2+7+1+3 = 7+2+8 = 17. 728 is a particularly special Smith number, since it's the smallest number to be part of a pair of Smith brothers. Smith brothers are two neighboring integers that are both Smith numbers. Seven hundred twenty nine 729 729 is the ninth cube (9^3), the third hexeract (3^6), and also the 27th square (27^2). It's Smith brothers with 728, making it the larger number in the smallest Smith brother pair. In 729's case, 729 = 3*3*3*3*3*3, 3+3+3+3+3+3 = 7+2+9 = 18. Seven hundred sixty nine 769 769 is the number of letters in the name of a googolplex in Conway and Guy's -illion system - the name is ten trillitrestrigintatrecentilli .......... trestrigintatrecentilliduotrigintitrecentillion with ......... replaced with 30 additional repetitions of "trestrigintatrecentilli". For more on that see my articles on googol and googolplex and extensions to the -illions. Eight hundred forty
840 840 is the weak factorial of eight (i.e. the smallest number divisible by 1 through 8), and the smallest one that neighbors a composite number (see 59 for more on that). It's also a highly composite number and the smallest that is not the number of divisors of a highly composite number. Eight hundred forty one 841 841, like 25, is one of the square numbers that is a sum of consecutive squares: 841 = 292 = 202+212. Such numbers are quite rare. This is also the smallest number one more or less than a weak factorial to be composite - for more on that see 59. Abundant numbers are numbers whose factors add up to a number larger than the original number (see also 12). The sequence starts 12, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 42, 48... note that those abundant numbers are all even. Therefore, you may think that there are all even, or perhaps wonder if there are any odd abundant numbers at all. It turns out that there are indeed odd abundant numbers; however the smallest isn't until 945. Interestingly, as Sbiis Saibian phrased it, this simple property leads to a naturally-occurring relatively large number.
945 is also 9 double factorial (9*7*5*3*1).
Nine hundred seventy-five 975 The sum of the divisors of 945, the smallest odd-abundant number. 991
The largest known permutable prime that is not a repunit prime. See 113 for details.
Nine hundred ninety nine 999 999 is an example of a repdigit, a number whose decimal expansion is just one digit repeated like 666 or 2222, hence the name. A number being a repdigit isn't all that interesting in and of itself since it's one of the few properties you can tell just by looking at the number, but there are interesting things that stem from repdigits. For example, prime numbers where all the digits are 1 are known as the repunit primes, and many repdigits (or near-repdigits), such as 55, 99, 999, 7777, 9999, 22222, 99999, are Kaprekar numbers.
The Thousands Range
1000 ~ 9999
Entries: 52
One thousand 1000 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
^ That's a thousand o's. 1000 = 10^3, the tenth cube and the cube of our base. Like 100, it's one of the few numbers larger than 10 that gets its own name in most languages (thousand in English, mille in Latin, chilia in Greek, qian in Chinese, tysyacha in Russian). It is also notable for usage as a base in Western numeral systems - each number after 1000 to get its own name in English (other than googol and googolplex) is a power of 1000 (see million), and numbers bigger than 10,000 when written are usually grouped by thousands using commas (for example 4294967295 is more often than not instead written as 4,294,967,295).
A thousand can almost always be considered a pretty big number, as a thousand of something is a little tricky to visualize in your head, and a thousand of anything is considered a large amount (for example, a faucet would take 8 hours to waste a thousand gallons). However it's still a pretty everyday occurrence - for example, people regularly budget money in the thousands. It's really too large to be an appealing large number like 100, but too small to really capture the idea of "really big number" like a million.
The SI prefixes for a thousand are kilo- (Greek) and its inverse, milli- (Latin). Both directly mean a thousand, and are commonly used in daily life. The root milli- is used in some English words like "millennium" or "millipede".
One thousand one 1001 1001 is a pretty interesting number. It's a product of three consecutive primes (7*11*13), and this causes the digits of some primorials and highly composite numbers to repeat. For example, 720,720, 1,081,080, 1,441,440, 2,162,160, 2,882,000, 3,603,600, 4,324,320, 6,486,480, 7,207,200, and 8,640,640 are a sequence of highly composite numbers, all of which have cycling digits. Also, the primorials 510,510 and 9,699,690 have similarly cycling digits. The weak factorials 360,360 and 720,720 have cycling digits as well. However, none of the factorials have cycling digits. 1001 also appears in many book titles - that phenomenon started with 1001 Arabian Nights and is now very common in book titles like "1001 places you must visit before you die", "1001 facts about astronomy", etc, etc. See also 101. One thousand twenty four 1024 1024 is 2^10, the second dekeract (aka 10th power of 2), and the fourth penteract. It's notable for being the base of the binary SI prefix system, based on powers of two and used in computing. The system works like so: kibi- = 2^10 = 1024 mebi- = 2^20 = 1,048,756 gibi- = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 tebi- = 2^40 pebi- = 2^50 exbi- = 2^60
zebi- = 2^70
yobi- = 2^80 This prefix system was created to avoid confusion between, say, a kilobyte being 1024 or 1000 bytes. Unfortunately, this system isn't used in actual computing all that much, and the confusion kind of remains. 1024 is a particularly special power of two to use humans because it's two to the tenth power, and it's close to a power of ten (a thousand actually)- a very special power of ten actually because of its use as a base in Western numeral system. That property also makes memorizing powers of 2 a little eaier, since every tenth power of two will start with about the same digits, e.g. 2^5 = 32 and 2^15 = 32,768. Here is a quick list of the first 20 powers of 2 so you can jump to each one's entry on this list (unless they don't have an entry), and to reflect some of the advantages of powers of 2: 2 2048 4 4096 8 8192 16 16,384 32 32,768 64 65,536 128 131,072 256 262,144 512 524,288 1024 1,048,576 The powers of two in general have some unique properties. For example, the powers of 2 are the only numbers that cannot be expressed as a sum of 2 or more consecutive positive integers, each row of Pascal's triangle adds up to a power of 2, and the sum of the reciprocals of the powers of 2 is 2. Powers of two are also a very popular thing for people (particularly number enthusiasts) to memorize - I've myself memorized the first twenty of them and a few larger ones.
One thousand one hundred three
1103 In Conway's Game of Life, when you start with the so-called "R pentomino", also called the F pentomino, it takes 1103 steps for the grid to stabilize in pattern, ending with 8 blocks, 4 beehives, one loaf, one boat, one ship, six blinkers, and six escaped gliders. This is unusual for starting with such a simple design, and I discuss this kind of thing in detail on my site on polyominoes and Conway's game of life. One thousand one hundred seven 1107 In a VHS to teach kids about math which I watched as a little kid, the same one I discussed in the entry for 43, one of the practice problems in the video was 41*27. I was intimidated by that problem because I don't recall the video even mentioning how to multiply two double-digit numbers, and thus I had no idea how to actually multiply 41*27. That problem stuck in my mind to this day. I soon accepted solving 41*27 as something beyond the scope of my ability, and have used that problem in a few crappy stories I made as a kid to indicate a difficult math problem. To me, this number is really significant as 41*27, not as 1107. One thousand two hundred eighty five
1285 1285 is the number of ennominoes/nonominoes, polyominoes made from 9 squares. They're usually called nonominoes, but I prefer ennominoes because it's etymologically consistent with the Greek roots in tetromino, pentomino, hexomino, heptomino, and octomino - same reason why I'm one of the people who prefers enneagon over nonagon for naming a 9-sided polygon. One thousand two hundred ninety six
1296 The sixth tesseract (6^4) and the 36th square number (36^2). One thousand three hundred thirty one 1331 1331 is the eleventh cubic number, and like 121 its digits coincide with Pascal's triangle - this is true for the first four powers of eleven (11, 121, 1331, 14,641) until the digits start to overlap (11^5 = 161,051) and break the pattern. For more on the interesting properties of powers/multiples of 11, see 11. One thousand three hundred thirty seven 1337 1337 is a number with a famously huge popularity on the Internet: Leet is an Internet language associated with hackers where some letters are substituted for similar-looking numbers or symbols. In that language, leet is written as 1337. Piplex 10^π ~ 1385.4557
This number is 10 to the pi-th power (see phiplex and eplex) - I didn't coin this number, but this was inspiration for the other two. The name was coined by Andre Joyce on his neologisms page as an example of just how many different numbers can be coined with the -plex suffix (x-plex is usually 10^x). See also pi-illion. One thousand five hundred forty 1540 is one of only five numbers that are both triangular and tetrahedral. The only other ones are 1, 10, 120, and 7140.
1728 is the twelfth cubic number, equal to 12^3. It is equal to a dozen dozen dozen, or a dozen gross, and 1728 of something is often called a great gross. This unit is used most often in shipping bulk quantities.
One thousand seven hundred twenty nine / Hardy-Ramanujan number 1729 This number was made famous by the mathematician G.H. Hardy - in an anecdote of his, he visited his friend Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was also a mathematician, who was ill in the hopsital. Hardy says he was picked up in the cab numbered 1729, and told Ramanujan that 1729 had no mathematical significance that he knew of, and hoped that wasn't a bad sign. Ramanujan replied and said that 1729 actually is a very interesting number - it's the first number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. 1729 can be represented as the sum of cubes in two ways: as 123+13 (1728+1), or as 103+93 (1000+729). Because of Hardy's story, numbers with the property of being the first number expressible as the sum of two cubes in x different ways are known as taxicab numbers. With that idea, 2 is the first taxicab number (one way to represent as a sum of two cubes, 13+13), and the next taxicab number is 87,539,319. The sixth one and the largest known one is equal to about 24.153 sextillion. The equation 123+1 = 103+93 is also a near miss to Fermat's last theorem, a famous theorem that states that for n>2, there are no positive integers a, b, and c that satisfy the equation an = bn+cn. This statement was for a long time just a conjecture (although it was still usually referred to as Fermat's last theorem), for it was conjectured by Pierre de Fermat in 1637. The conjecture was something extremely simple, something a middle schooler could probably understand, and yet it remained unproven for over 300 years. Although over time it was proven for specific cases, the theorem was considered nigh unprovable by current mathematical knowledge. A full proof of the theorem finally came in 1994 by Andrew Wiles - he was able to prove it by making use of elliptic curves which were seemingly unrelated to the theorem. Wiles received many awards for this incredible proof.
1849
This is the number of known uniform polychora (4-dimensional figures) under Jonathan Bowers' new definition (under the old definition it was 8190). Jonathan Bowers documents almost every single one of them on the polychoron section of his website, and he even gives each and every one of them a name, sch as "Padohi" or "Gidsosadex". He has also made some stunning graphics of these multidimensional figures.
One thousand nine hundred fifty one 1951 1951 is part of an interesting coincidence regarding prime numbers - 1951 is a prime number, and the record for largest known prime was broken twice for the first time in 75 years in 1951, with a mechanical calculator and then, for the first time, with an electronic computer. Unusually neither of those primes are Mersenne primes. For more historical events in googology see my large number timeline. One thousand nine hundred sixty one 1961 1961 was the most recent strobogrammatic year, i.e. a year whose number is the same read upside down. The three most recent strobogrammatic years were 1691, 1881, and 1961, and the next is 6009. See also 69. One thousand nine hundred seventy seven
1977 1977 was the year Graham's number was defined, and a year many people seem to be stuck in (you should click the link, it's a great rant by Sbiis Saibian about Graham's number's overwhelming popularity) For more historical events in googology see my large number timeline. One thousand nine hundred ninety eight 1998 Since this number is exactly three times the famed beast number (666), it has sometimes been touted as an apocalypse date, though not as much as 2012. 1998 has other interesting connections to 666: for instance, when taking the digits of the fourth, fifth, or sixth powers of 666 in groups of three from the right, you get 1998. Example: 666^4 = 196,741,925,136, 196+741+925+136 = 1998
This strange property is quite similar to Kaprekar numbers. There are other connections between 666 and 1998 relating to e and pi as well. 1998 was also the year the ever-growing number called the lynz was defined - three of its values at different times are on this list. Two thousand 2000 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o The number 2000 is notable as a number where the number of results on Google hits a huge spike. This is because 2000 (and later years) are referred to usually as year numbers. As the Internet grows more and more ubiquitous, each year from 2002 to the current year has more results than the previous, with, as of June 2014, 746 million results for 2002 and 10 billion results for 2014! The number 2000 has some significance related to this website: Wythagoras of Googology Wiki pointed out that this website was created exactly 2000 days after Googology Wiki was. I didn't specifically plan this - it's just a happy coincidence. 2000 was also a digital "apocalypse year" because of the extremely famous Y2K problem - since at one time, years were stored only as the last two digits, some people feared that computers will no longer work right in 2000. See also 2012 and 2038. Two thousand one 2001 2001 was the year Bignum Bakeoff was held. Bignum Bakeoff was an online competition to make a program in C with 512 or fewer characters to make the biggest number you can. Twenty entries were accepted (nine from the same person), fourteen of which produced a sizable number. Bignum Bakeoff was the birthplace of some really big numbers, most famously Loader's number. For more historical events in googology see my large number timeline. Two thousand eight 2008 The year 2008 was the year Googology Wiki was founded, along with Sbiis Saibian's large number site a few days later, although that proximity in dates is just a nice coincidence. Both websites are well-known by the googology community. For more historical events in googology see my large number timeline. Two thousand twelve 2012 2012 is the single best known apocalypse year, a year in which some thought the world would end. This belief had to do with the Mayan calendar starting the 13th "b'ak'tun", a period of exactly 144,000 days (about 394 years), in 2012. See 144,000 for more on that. That start of an era, which many people interpreted as the end of the world, was interpreted as December 21, 2012, and it was even the subject of an apocalypse movie named 2012. Two thousand fourteen 2014 2014 is the year I made this website, the year BIG FOOT was defined, the year I joined Googology Wiki, the infamous "number" called Sam's Number was made up, Rayo's number got a Wikipedia article, etc. For more historical events in googology see my large number timeline. Two thousand thirty eight 2038 The year 2038 is the subject of a problem involving computing similar to Y2K, known as the year 2038 problem. Many computers use the Unix time system, and in that system the time is stored as 32-bit signed integers as the number of seconds after January 1, 1970. In the Unix time system, the integer stored as the time will hit 2,147,483,647 (the maximum value of a 32-bit signed integer) at 3:14:08 AM on January 19, 2038, and then it will wrap around back to 1901 and be stored as -2,147,483,648, the minimum value of a 32-bit signed integer. See also 292,277,026,956.
Two thousand forty seven
2047 This is the first Mersenne number of the form 2p-1 (p is a prime number) that is composite. It can be expressed as 211-1. It's notable because all Mersenne numbers that are prime are of the form 2p-1 where p is prime, since 2^c-1 (c is composite) can be shown to never be prime - this is the first case of 2p-1 not being a prime number. Two thousand forty eight
2048 2048 is the eleventh power of two, and the largest known one whose digits are all even. Higher ones have been checked up to at least numbers with trillions of digits, but you don't need to check all the digits - you can just check the last ten and it's already unlikely that those will be even. But 2048 is FAR better known as the name of an infamously addictive game where the goal is to combine tiles of powers of 2 until you get to 2048. 2048, though difficult to achieve, is not the highest tile achievable - the highest is 131,072. e^^e (by linear approximation) 2380.21217... This number is e^^e in one extension of tetration to any (positive) real numbers known as linear approximation- in this system, a^^b (b is not an integer number) = a^a^a.....^a^a^c, with d+1 a's, where c is the fraction part of b and d is the integer part of b. So here, e^^e = e^e^e^c = e^e^e^(e-2) ~ 2380.212. 2401
2401 is 7^4, the seventh tesseract. Also, its digits (2+4+0+1) add up to 7. This makes it a Dudeney number for fourth powers (see 19,683 for details). The only other numbers with this property are 1, 224, 254, 284, and 364. Two thousand five hundred twenty 2520 This number is the weak factorial of nine and ten. It's the first number divisible by all single-digit numbers, and half of a factorial number (5040). It's also a highly composite number, and so is 5040. Three thousand
3000 3000 or numbers near 3000 are often given as representing a year in the future - the TV show Futurama, which takes place a thousand years in the future, is probably the best-known example of this. Personal: In fifth grade I decided to count all my stray Lego pieces and got a number a little over 3000. I probably actually had about 5000-6000, since I didn't count those that were in sets. Three thousand one hundred twenty five / Fzfive 3125 This number, expressible as 5^5 (fifth penteract) or 5^^2, is another very small tetrational number but a fair-sized exponential number. It can be named fzfive with the fz- prefix, which takes a number to its own power. Personal: When I was about 9 years old I was curious about numbers raised to their own power (dubbed by me self-powers), and when doing calculations I noticed they grew impressively quickly. I also noticed that each self-power is scarcer in real life than the previous, and I particularly noted that when trying to find real examples of the number 3125. 3125 is one of the larger numbers to have any sort of significance to me as a kid, other than vigintillion and trigintillion. Four thousand ninety five 4095 This number is a Mersenne number equal to 2^12-1. It's the largest number that is both a Mersenne number and a triangular number, and the smallest Mersenne number to be an abundant number (see also 945). It's also one less than my favorite 4-digit number, 4096. Four thousand ninety six 4096 4096 is equal to 8^4 (the eighth tesseract), 16^3 (the sixteenth cube), and also the twelfth power of two. Since 4096 is two to the power of twelve which is a highly composite number, it is one of the numbers that has the property of being the first number expressible as a power (not counting a first power, which is trivial) in x ways, in this case five ways - 2^12 = 4^6 = 8^4 = 16^3 = 64^2. The sequence starts 16 for two ways, 64 for three ways, and 4096 for five ways. For numbers with similar properties, see 16, 64, and 81. 4096 can also be called googoiv, the fourth member of the googo- series, equal to 8^4. See also 216 and 100,000. 4096 is also a number that can easily be turned into other interesting numbers - decrease it by 1 and you get 4095, a number with some unique properties; increase it by 2 and you get 4098, suspected to be the value of the fifth busy beaver number; remove the 0 and you get 496, a perfect number. Because of these properties I listed above (especially that it can be expressed as a power in 5 different ways), 4096 is my favorite four digit number, continuing 7, 17, and 211 as my favorite 1, 2, and 3 digit numbers. See also 19,683 and 104096. Four thousand ninety eight 4098 4098 is the current lower bound for BB(5) in the busy beaver function, the function that denotes the maximum number of marks a n-state Turing machine can make. The fifth busy beaver number is suspected to be equal to 4098, though this has not been fully confirmed, as there are trillions of Turing machines one has to consider and/or rule out, and doing so is even harder than proving S(4) with the frantic frog function (a sibling of the busy beaver function) to be equal to 107. It is a current mission to prove that the fifth busy beaver number is (or isn't) equal to 4098. Four thousand six hundred fifty five 4655 4655 is the number of decominoes, polyominoes made from ten squares. Five thousand
5000 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o ^ 5000 o's.
It's also the result of plugging in "gogol" into Joyce's extended googo- system. It's a relatively trivial sized value, being not even in the same realm of numbers as the googol. Gogol is also the name of a googolism by Sbiis Saibian. 5000 is also a common approximation for 5280, the number of feet in a mile. Five thousand forty 5040 5040 is the seventh factorial number. It's the largest factorial to be a highly composite number. It's expressible as a product of consecutive integers in two different ways: 1*2*3*4*5*6*7 and 7*8*9*10 - the smallest number with this property is 120.
Five thousand two hundred eighty 5280 5280 is the number of feet in a mile. The value is unusual for not being very round, and it originated like so: 3 feet = 1 yard 5.5 yards = 1 rod 4 rods = 1 chain 10 chains = 1 furlong 8 furlongs = 1 mile You may notice that some of the numbers used here, particularly 5.5, aren't round in themselves. This is because these units originally had agricultural meanings and were only later standardized based on kind-of-round approximations. Five thousand seven hundred seventy five 5775 5775 is an odd abundant number (see 945), and the first number to be part of a pair of neighboring abundant numbers, since its neighbor 5776 is abundant. As with 945, this is an example of a fairly large number with a naturally occurring property. 5776
The smallest even abundant number that neighbors an abundant number (see 5775), and also a square number whose digits end in its square root (see 76 for more on that). Six thousand one hundred seventy four / Kaprekar's constant 6174 This is a well-known interesting number known as Kaprekar's constant - it's the end result of performing the following process (called Kaprekar's routine) on a four-digit number at most seven times: 1. Take a non-repdigit four-digit number 2. Arrange its digits in descending and then ascending order to get two four digit numbers 3. Subtract the smaller number from the larger number 4. Repeat step 2 For example, let's try this for 4096: 9640 - 0469 = 9171 9711 - 1179 = 8532 8532 - 2358 = 6174 This number is especially interesting because this kind of thing only works for four-digit numbers and for three-digit numbers (in which case the end result is always 495); it ends in a loop instead of with a single number for two digits, and for five or more there are several different possible fixed values or loops that the process can end in. For a similar process but with addition, see 196. Six thousand five hundred sixty one 6561 This number is equal to three to the eighth power, nine to the fourth power (9th tesseract), and 81 squared. It is called tetrafact by SpongeTechX of Googology Wiki in his mixed factorial function. The mixed factorial of x, or x*, is equal to (....((((1+2)*3)^4)^^5)^^^6)......){x-3}x. Therefore 4* evaluates to ((1+2)*3)^4 = (3*3)^4 = 9^4 = 6561. Seven thousand one hundred forty 7140 7140 is the 34th tetrahedral number and the 119th triangular number, and the largest number that is both triangular and tetrahedral. There are only 5 such numbers, and they are 1, 10, 120, 1540, and 7140. Seven thousand five hundred 7500 The result of plugging in "goggol" into Joyce's extended googo- system. Goggol is also the name of a googolism by Jonathan Bowers - it's unfathomably larger than just 7500. Seven thousand five hundred sixty 7560 Highly composite numbers are numbers that have more divisors than any smaller number. Superabundant numbers are closely related to highly composite numbers - they are numbers where the ratio of the sum of divisors (other than itself) to the number is greater than that ratio for any previous number. The first superabundant numbers are 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 120 ... - note that the sequence starts identical to the sequence for highly composite numbers. But when do the sequences start differing from one another? Turns out that the first number that is superabundant or highly composite, but not both, is 7560 (it's highly composite but not superabundant). Note that superabundant numbers are somewhat less common than highly composite numbers. As with 945 (the smallest odd abundant number), this naturally occurring property occurs at a relatively large number. However, the first number that is superabundant but not highly composite is even bigger. Seven thousand seven hundred seventy six 7776 7776 is equal to six to the fifth power, and it's a particularly memorable small power, being nearly a repdigit. It's also a Kaprekar number for fifth powers. Eight thousand 8000 In the original Japanese dub of Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta says "it's over eight thousand" instead of the far more famous "nine thousand". Eight thousand one hundred twenty eight 8128 This is the fourth perfect number, expressible as (211-1)*210. It was the largest perfect number known in ancient times, as the next perfect number (33,550,336) is much larger.
8190
This is the number of known uniform polychora, 4-dimensional analogs of polyhedra, under Bowers' old definition (under the new definition it's 1849). This figure was discovered by Jonathan Bowers who, alongside his googology, is known for his work in shapes of higher dimensions.
Eight thousand one hundred ninety one
8191 This number is the fifth Mersenne prime, equal to 2^13-1. It's the first one known to be discovered in a certain year, specifically 1461. There is also a minor planet numbered 8191 (which is just another asteroid) that has been named 8191 Mersenne in honor of Marin Mersenne who first studied Mersenne primes. 8191 is also one of only two numbers that is a more-than-two-digit repunit prime in more than one base: 8191 = 1111 in base 90 = 1111111111111 in base 2. The only other number with this property is 31.
Nine thousand 9000 This number is most famous as the Internet meme "It's Over 9000", an infamous quote spoken by Vegeta (right) in an episode of Dragon Ball Z. It was also used as the starting number in the xkcd forums' legendary thread "My number is bigger": the original poster said: "I'll start us off with nine thousand. Because we all know that anything over nine thousand is fucking unimaginably huge." Nine thousand one 9001 Often used in place of 9000 when referencing the "over 9000" meme, since this is the first whole number that's actually over 9000. Also, the class of "fucking unimaginably huge" starts right here (not)! The Super-Thousands Range
10,000 ~ 999,999
Entries: 40
Ten thousand / one myriad 10,000 o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 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o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 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o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o ^ That above is 10,000 o's, a nice way to visualize 10,000.
10,000 is 104, known as "ten thousand" in English, but in many other numeral systems it gets its own word. The Ancient Greeks used 10,000 as the base of their large numbers, as they called it a myriad. 10,000 is also used as a base in some Eastern numeral systems similar to how Western numeral systems use 1000 - for example, in Chinese 10,000 is called "wan", and in Japanese and Korean it's called "man". Chinese gives unique names for powers of 10,000 - 10^8 is called yi,10^12 is called zhao, 10^16 is called jing, 10^20 is called gai, and names continue up to 10^44, called zai. See my article on Knuth's -yllions (another system based on 10,000) for details on Chinese numerals. 10,000 is notable because it's around the edge of numbers we can visualize in our minds - any larger number is difficult to get a mental picture of the number, and even 10,000 is quite tricky - you may want to zoom out to see all 10,000 o's on your screen to get a visual picture of 10,000.
10,000 was the largest publicly circulating US dollar bill denomination before it was retired along with 500, 1000, and 5000.
Ten thousand nine hundred eleven
10,911 Consider the process of taking a number, adding its reverse to the original number, and repeating the process until you get a palindrome. 10,911 takes 55 steps to get a palindrome, more than any smaller number except for the candidate Lychrel numbers. See also 89 (another record-setter with number of steps) and 196. 14,296
This is my upper-bound on the number of turns any single chess game can last, using the fifty-move rule. The fifty-move rule states that if the game goes 50 moves (a move is a turn by white followed by a turn by black) without any pawn moves or captures, then it is a draw (neither player wins). Based on that we can upper-bound the number of turns a chess game can last.
First consider the maximum number of pawn moves or captures that can happen in a game of chess. The maximum number of pawn moves for either player is 56 (max. 7 moves for each of 8 pawns), and the maximum number of captures for each player is 15 (capturing every piece except the opponent's king), adding up to 71 pawn moves/capturesper player.
Then, using the fifty-move rule the maximum gap between any two pawn moves or captures is 99 turns if both such moves are the same player, or 98 turns if the two moves are different players. Optimally, we can have black do a pawn move or capture on its turn on the 49th, 99th, 149th ... 3549th moves (71 such moves total), and then have white do the same on the 3598th, 3648th, 3698th ... 7098th moves - then, we can add an additional 50 moves to that to get a game lasting a 7148 moves. Doubling that gives us a game lasting a maximal 14,296 turns.
Now think about how dull such a long game would be - both players would have to move pieces around aimlessly without capturing or moving any pawns, until once about every 50 moves one player, to avoid a fifty-move-rule draw, would move a pawn or capture exactly one piece, and the process continues until there are just two kings, who themselves move aimlessly around the board for the last 50 moves until a draw happens from the fifty-move rule. There's no way in hell a strategically played game would last anywhere near this long.
In any case, I use this number for my upper-bound of all possible chess games.
Fourteen thousand six hundred forty one 14,641 14,641 is 11^4 (the eleventh tesseract) and the largest power of 11 whose digits coincide with Pascal's Triangle. Seventeen thousand two hundred eleven 17,211 This is the number of times 666 appears in the digits of the largest known prime as of 2013-15. As one would expect, it's about one thousandth of the number of digits in the prime. This is a number I found just for the hell of it, and curiously, it also looks like two of my favorite numbers (17 and 211) stuck together :) Seventeen thousand five hundred seventy six 17,576 This is 26 cubed, and therefore it's the number of possible 3-letter acronyms just using the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. 3-letter acronyms are notably common in today's world - see my entry for 3 for more on that sort of thing. Nineteen thousand six hundred eighty three / Fuga-three 19,683 Fuga-x is equal to (...(((x^x)^x)^x).....)^x, with x x's. When you plug in three, you come out with this important power of three (see also fugafour) - this number is equal to (3^3)^3 = 27^3, 3^9, and 3^3^2, although it's not as important to googology as the larger megafuga-three is. It is expressible as 3vv3 in down-arrow notation (see entries in part 2-3 for examples) - therefore it shows up a lot when working with threes in down-arrow notation, analogous to 3^^3 in up-arrow notation. 19,683 is also the largest Dudeney number - a Dudeney number is a number whose digits add up to its cube root (see also 27). The only other ones are 1, 83, 173, 183, and 263. It's easy to see that there's a limit to Dudeney numbers: for example, if a number has 7 digits its cube root must be at least 100, but the 7 digits can't add up to any more that 7 *9 = 63. Also, 19,683 = 3^9 (change the power to a product) 3*9 = 27 = 1+9+6+8+3, and 19,683 = (3^3)^3 (change power to a product) 3*3*3 = 27. This gives 19,683 nice connections with 27. 19,683 can also be thought of as a googol (10^100) in base 3: 10^100 (base 3) = 3^9 (base 10) = 19,683 Because of the properties I listed above, 19,683 is my favorite 5-digit number, finishing the sequence of my favorite x-digit numbers 7, 17, 211, 4096, 19,683. I don't have a favorite 6-or-more-digit number. Twenty thousand / Eyelash mite 20,000 An eyelash mite, equal to exactly twenty thousand, is one of Sbiis Saibian's smallest googolisms, and the very first he introduces in his Hyper-E article. By googology standards, an eyelash mite is TINY, since you'll need to multiply an eyelash mite by itself twenty-four times just to get past the googol. This number lies just barely outside our ability to visualize in our minds, and can be seen as a fringe number in that respect. It's a number that lies just outside our tertiary number sense, and just barely scratching into our quaternary sense, our ability to understand numbers with examples in the world. However, really the quaternary sense is more of an amount of knowledge that is expanded artificially than a sense. To get an idea of this number's size let's put the value into time terms: - This many seconds is 5 hours, 33 minutes. This amount of time is fairly long for a daily task, but still quite a humble amount of time in most respects. However, 5 hours is just about enough time to make us easily want to do something else afrer doing the same thing for this much time, so therefore an eyelash mite seconds can be seen as a reasonably long time. - This many minutes is 13 days, 16 hours, or about two weeks. It's enough time that waiting this long for anything will quite easily make someone impatient, such as when you just ordered a new computer or other device you really want from the Internet but it won't arrive until 2 weeks from now. - This many hours is about 2 years, 3 months. It's long enough that something that happened this long ago will generally feel like it was a long time ago in any respect. - This many days is 54 years, 9 months, meaning that this number is still small enough that most people can expect to live for this many days. But don't expect that to last much longer. - This many weeks is about 383 years. This means that as of this writing, a dust mite weeks ago was still long before America was its own country or even a well-established set of colonies! - This many months is about 1667 years, so 20,000 months ago it was around the times of the Roman Empire. - This many years is, well, 20,000 years. Let's just say that this many years is over three times as long as the span of recorded history! - A sphere of this many gallons of water would be about 4x as tall as the average person. So this is a number that is not entirely ungraspable by most means, but a number big enough to at least feel fairly sizable. However, this is just a warm-up for some far bigger numbers (see dust mite). Twenty thousand seven hundred thirty six / Great great gross / Gargantuan gross 20,736 20,736 is 12^4, the twelfth tesseract. It's been named "great great gross" continuing the pattern of the widely recognized names dozen = 12, gross = 12^2, great gross = 12^3. The name gargantuan gross has also been proposed by some guy on Googology Wiki but that name is just silly. Twenty-four thousand three hundred thirty six 24,336 This is 26*26*36, and therefore it's the number of possible 3-letter acronyms if we allow the last letter to be a letter or a digit, such as in the acronym MP3. See also 17,576. Twenty-five thousand six hundred sixty seven 25,667 This number is the number of digits in the smallest repunit prime in base 18 with more than 2 digits - in other words, the first prime with more than two digits with no digits other than one in base 18 has over twenty-five thousand digits! The prime itself has an entry in part 2 of this list. No other base below at least base 142 has a smallest more-than-2-digit repunit prime with that many digits. (actually, the number is a probable prime, meaning that it hasn't been fully proven to be prime but the probability that it's prime is very close to 100%) Twenty-seven thousand six hundred forty eight 27,648 This number is 4 hyperfactorial, equal to 44*33*22*11 = 256*27*4*1. The next hyperfactorial number is much larger. 27,720
This is the weak factorial of eleven and of twelve (smallest number divisible by 1 through 12), and also the smallest highly composite number that is divisible by 11.
Thirty thousand two hundred forty 30,240 30,240 is the smallest 4-perfect number, i.e. a number whose divisors (including itself) add up to 4 times the original number - for more on x-perfect numbers that see the entry for 120. It is also a nice little coincidence that you can rearrange the digits of this number to get 40,320, which is a factorial and shares many of 30,420's divisors. Thirty two thousand seven hundred sixty seven 32,767 This is 2^15-1, and it's the largest number that can be stored as a signed 16-bit integer in computing. 16-bit integers are most often used if you need to save space but need to store numbers wider-ranged than just 8-bit integers. See also 127, 2,147,483,647, and 9,223,372,046,854,755,097. Thirty two thousand seven hundred sixty eight / binary-small fry 32,768 This number is 2^15 and it's a number Sbiis Saibian gives a name, "binary-small fry". How did he get that name? Well, you can actually construct a lot of numbers with methods Sbiis Saibian gives. First take any number from this list below: eyelash mite, dust mite, cheese mite, clover mite, pipsqueak, little squeaker, small fry, guppy, minnow, goby, gogol, jumbo shrimp, lightweight, ogol, tiny twerpuloid, googolspeck, googolcrumb, googolchunk, googol Each of those numbers has an entry on this list; you will find that each of these numbers can be expressed as a*10n, e.g. eyelash mite = 2*104 and googol = 1*10100. But how do you change up those numbers to make new ones? If the number from the list above is guppy, minnow, goby, gogol, ogol, or googol, then append the name with -bit to change the a*10n form to a*2n - similarly use -byte to change it to a*8n. For example, since gogol = 1050, gogolbyte = 850, a 46-digit number. If the number is eyelash mite, dust mite, cheese mite, clover mite, pipsqueak, small fry, or lightweight, then precede the name with binary- to change the a*10n form to a*2n - similarly use octal- to change it to a*8n. For example, since dust mite = 2*104, binary-dust mite = 2*24 = 32. 32 is actually the smallest number you can get with this entire system. And if the number is little squeaker, jumbo shrimp, or tiny twerpuloid, do the same process as above with binary- and octal-, but drop the first word of the original number's name (and in the case of "jumbo shrimp", change "shrimp" to "prawn"). For example, since little squeaker = 5*1010, 5*210 (equal to 5120) is called binary-squeaker because "little", the first word in "little squeaker" is dropped. Since a small fry = 1015 (also known as a quadrillion), hopefully now you can see how the name "binary-small fry" for 215 was obtained. Forty thousand three hundred twenty 40,320 40,320 is the eighth factorial. It's the smallest factorial that is not a highly composite number. It's also the number of minutes in a 28-day month - therefore Robert Munafo suggests that we call February (when it isn't a leap year) Factorial Appreciation Month. You can rearrange its digits to get the smallest 4-perfect number, 30,240, which has many divisors in common with this number. Forty thousand five hundred eighty five 40,585 40,585 is the sum of the factorials of its digits since 4!+0!+5!+8!+5! = 40,585 - such numbers are known as factorions. The only other number with this property in base 10 (other than the trivial cases of 1 and 2) is 145. It is easy to see that there is a limit to numbers that can have this property: consider a m-digit number, n. The sum of the factorials of n's digits must be less than or equal to 9!*m, which, when m is 8 or more, will necessarily have fewer digits than n. Forty-six thousand six hundred fifty six / fzsix 46,656 46,656 is equal to 6^6 or 6^^2, and it can be named fzsix with the fz- prefix. Forty-six thousand eight hundred fifty-three 46,853 46,853 is a number that appeared in an episode of the TV show SpongeBob Squarepants, which was my favorite TV show as a kid. It is the number of customers SpongeBob and Patrick receive in the episode Patty Hype, where SpongeBob and Patrick decide to start selling colorful Krabby Patties called Pretty Patties. Mr. Krabs thinks the idea is stupid, but it becomes an unexpected huge success. That occurrence has found its way onto Wikipedia's article on the number 40,000, which lists notable numbers in the 40,000s. For another bigger number to appear in SpongeBob, see 29,998,559,671,349, which I call SpongeBob's Number. Weirdly, 46,853 and SpongeBob's Number are both prime. Fifty thousand / Dust mite 50,000 This number is another one of Sbiis Saibian's smallest googolisms. It's very very tiny by googological standards - it doesn't even clear the astronomical range, since its lower limit is usually considered to be a million. I myself used to give that range the low limit of a billion, but when you consider things like the planets' distances from the sun being measured in millions of miles, it makes sense to consider numbers in the millions astronomical to at least some extent. 50,000 lies just barely outside our ability to visualize in our minds, and here are some examples of its size: - a dust mite seconds is about 13.6 hours, meaning that most people are awake only a little more than a dust mite hours a day. - a dust mite minutes is about 34.7 days - a dust mite hours is about 5.7 years - a dust mite days is about 136 years, so nobody has lived that many days! - a faucet would take 17 days to waste this many gallons So it's a pretty big number, but just not quite a number that strikes fear into us. The next smallest number of Saibian's is a cheese mite, or 80,000. Sixty-five thousand six hundred thirty-six 65,536 65,536 is 2 to the 16th power (a power of 2), and as such it's another number associated with computers, especially since the exponent (16) is itself a power of 2. For example it's the total number of possible different 16-bit integers (see also 32,767). It can also be expressed using exponents as 256^2, 16^4, 16^2^2, 4^8, 4^2^3, 2^16, 2^4^2, 2^2^4, or 2^2^2^2, and using Knuth's up-arrows it can be expressed 2^^4 (two tetrated to four), 2^^2^^2, or 2^^^3 (two pentated to three), so there are a lot of ways 65,536 can be expressed. It's also the only non-trivial pentation (a^^^b where a>1 and b>2) that's small enough to write out in full, as even 2^^^4, the next smallest non-trivial pentation, is a power tower of 65,536 twos!
This number is called "googolpleij" in the googolple- naming system, since -ij is a respelling of ii meaning 2 in Roman numerals, and googolple-x (under my version of the system) is x^x^x^2, so googolpleij = 2^2^4 = 2^16 = 65,536. In terms of the googo- series it's between googoiv (4096) and googov (100,000). Sixty five thousand five hundred thirty seven 65,537 This is the fifth and largest known Fermat prime - this one's expressible as 2^2^4+1. All the next Fermat numbers (2^2^x+1) are either known to be composite or too large to test. Sixty nine thousand one hundred five 69,105 69,105 is a number famous because it was an in-joke in the computer game company Infocom. The number has been referenced many times in their games and occasionally been referenced by different companies in honor of Infocom. The most famous occurrence is in Zork: On the ground is a pile of leaves. > count leaves There are 69,105 leaves here. 69,105 was probably chosen for two reasons: 69's cult popularity and 69's unusual connections with 105 regarding bases (see 105). Eighty thousand / Cheese mite 80,000 Up next among Sbiis Saibian's googolisms is the cheese mite, equal to 80,000, 1.6 times the dust mite and 4 times the eyelash mite. Once again let's put this number into time terms: - This many seconds is about 22.2 hours, just under the length of an entire day. This means that you'll almost never be awake for a cheese mite seconds straight! - This many minutes is about 55.5 days, or about two months. - This many hours is about 9.12 years, meaning that events from a cheese mite hours ago will, in almost any context, feel like a long time ago. - This many days is about 219 years. This means that a cheese mite seconds ago (as of this writing), America was a very young country, and under George Washington's presidency. - This many weeks is about 1533 years, or about a millennium and a half. - This many months is about 6,667 years, about as long a time as from the start of recorded history to the present day. - This many years ago was just long enough ago that it was before most of life as we know it today was even starting to develop - 80,000 years ago was well before the onset of agriculture, let alone the earliest known record of writing. A sphere of a cheese mite gallons of water would be about 8.5 meters, or 27 feet, tall, making it four to five times the height of the average person. This makes it almost identical in size to the world's largest beach ball. The next major googolism of Sbiis Saibian's is the clover mite. Eighty-six thousand four hundred 86,400 This is the number of seconds in a day. This figure shows that two units of time which are very easy for people to comprehend have a decently large ratio, and that decently large numbers like this can occur pretty naturally. A second was formerly defined by the SI as equal to 1/86,400 of a day - however they later decided to change the definition to something more precisely determinable (see 9,192,631,770).
Ninety nine thousand sixty six 99,066 This number is a strobogrammatic (reads the same upside down) number which happens to be the square root of the somewhat famous (thanks Wikipedia) number 9,814,072,356, which has its own entry on this list. One hundred thousand / Lakh 100,000 This number is where the numbers start feeling very large. Not large as in too large to grasp directly (like ten), but large as in too large to visualize and therefore somewhat abstract. 100,000 will show up a lot in later numbers, particularly with the -gong suffix invented by Sbiis Saibian. Basically, if x = f(100), then x-gong = f(100,000). You could therefore call 100,000 a hundredgong, but that name is just plain silly. 100,000 is called lakh in the Indian number system, and there it’s written as 1,00,000. In Indian numbers, the digits group by twos except for the last three, which group by threes. Here's some examples of 100,000: The most digits of pi memorized by a human is 100,000, and that’s probably by a REALLY INCREDIBLY ADVANCED mind. This goes to show that 100,000 is well beyond the limit of palpable numbers for most people. Walking 100,000 miles nonstop would take thirty years. A city with 100,000 people is generally quite a large city. The average human being has 100,000-150,000 hairs. There are tons more examples of course 100,000 was the largest denomination ever of the US dollar bill, but it was only used in massive transactions. This number is called googov in the googo- system - the previous googo- number is googoiv and the next is googovi. One hundred thirty one thousand seventy one 131,071 This number, denoted M17 or 217-1, is the sixth Mersenne prime, proven to be prime along with 524,287 in 1588. One hundred thirty one thousand seventy two 131,072 This number is equal to two to the seventeenth power. It is the largest possible tile that can be achieved in 2048. To form a tile x, you'll need all previous tiles on the board, so to achieve the 2048 tile you'll need to have at least one of each tile from 2 to 1024 on the board at once. Early tiles are trivial to achieve, but from 512 onward it gets harder and harder. Since the board has 16 places for tiles, the highest tile should be 65,536, with a 2, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc up to 32,768 on the board allowing you to get 65,536 - each tile must neighbor the previous tile, so achieving that tile is virtually impossible. But since fours can spawn occasionally, you can have a board with 4, 4, 8, 16, etc up to 131,072, allowing you to achieve 131,072. 142,857
This number is the second smallest number of the form (10^(p-1))/p, this time (1,000,000-1)/7 = 999,999/7, hence the name (coined by Andre Joyce) integral-megaseptile (mega (SI prefix) for based on one million minus one, sept (Latin root) for divided by seven). Joyce described this as "the sacred number of the Pythagoreans" for its unique properties. It's also the repeating block of digits in 1/7. This number's multiples are rearranged versions of its digits: 142,857*2, *3, *4, *5, *6, = 285,714, 428,571, 571,428, 714,285, 857,142, respectively, making this the first cyclic number, and by far the best-known. All cyclic numbers are of the form (10^(p-1))/p, where p is a prime number whose reciprocal's digits repeat with a pattern of length p-1 - see 7 and 17. One hundred forty four thousand 144,000 This is a number known for its religious significance, appearing several times in religion. For example, in the Bible the twelve sons of Israel each had tribes of 12,000 members amounting to 144,000 people, and those 144,000 people are referenced two other times there. It's been given some additional spiritual significance and references in pop culture. 144,000 days is the duration of a "b'ak'tun" in the Mayan calendar, and that is the cause of the 2012 phenomenon. The b'ak'tun is part of a hierarchy of Mayan calendar periods: K'in = 1 day Winai = 20 k'in Tun = 18 Winai = 360 days K'atun = 20 tun ~ 20 years B'ak'tun = 20 k'atun ~ 400 years Piktun = 20 b'ak'tun Kalabtun = 20 piktun K'inchiltun = 20 kalabtun Alautun = 20 k'inchiltun ~ 63 million years An interesting thing to note is that every period is 20 times the previous (Mayans used 20 as a base), except for the Tun. This is clearly because the Mayans wanted the "tun" to be equivalent to a year, and so they decided to deviate from the 20 pattern and make the tun 18 winai to approximate a year. Two hundred thousand / Clover mite 200,000 This is another one of Sbiis Saibian's smallest googolisms. It is named "clover mite" after a spider a millimeter in size that is just big enough for us to see. Saibian describes it as a number small enough for us to understand with examples, but just large enough to make us feel a little uneasy. For example, it's about 14x the number of gallons of water the average person consumes in their life, and this many gallons in a sphere would be about 11.31 meters, or 37 feet, towering above many buildings. It's pretty damn big by day-to-day standards, but still not *too* scary yet. See also cheese mite and pipsqueak. Two hundred sixty two thousand one hundred forty 262,140 This number is a lower bound for tree(3) in the tree(n) function, a weaker variant of the famous TREE(n) function. It's believed to be equal to tree(3), though this has not been fully proven. The tree(n) function is known to have growth rate of the small Veblen ordinal in the fast-growing hierarchy. Two hundred sixty two thousand one hundred forty four 262,144 This number is equal to two to the eighteenth power. It's the expofactorial of 4. The expofactorial of x is x^(x-1)^(x-2)......^3^2^1 (see also expofaxul and zootzootplex), and its a more powerful variant of the factorial, achieving tetrational growth. 262,144 is the last expofactorial that can be compactly expressed, as 5 expofactorial has about 183,000 digits and 6 expofactorial has well over a googolgong digits. Three hundred sixty two thousand eight hundred eighty 362,880 9!, the ninth factorial number. Five hundred twenty four thousand two hundred eighty seven 524,287 This number, denoted M19 or 219-1, is the seventh Mersenne prime. It was proven to be prime along with 131,071 in 1588. 649,740
This number is the odds against getting a royal flush in playing cards - this means that if you're dealt five cards at random from a deck of 52 cards you have a 1 in 649,740 chance of getting a royal flush, a hand consisting of an ace, king, queen, jack, and ten, all of the same suit. Of the 2,598,960 possible hands of five cards you can have, only four of them are royal flushes. This number is considered a pretty high unlikelihood by ordinary standards, but probability can take us far far further as we will see later on this list.
Appears several times in the definition of a salad number called Genu's Number II. Eight hundred twenty three thousand five hundred forty three / Fzseven 823,543 This is 7^7, also expressible as 7^^2 using Knuth's up-arrow notation. With the fz- prefix it can be named fzseven. This list is getting rather long, so we'll continue in another page, part 2 of this list. |