Fun With Numbers

Today marks the 257th anniversary of the birth of French mathematician Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier. He is best remembered for his 1822 publication “Théorie analytique de la chaleur” in which he argued that the flow of heat between two adjacent molecules is proportional to the extremely small difference of their temperatures.

I have absolutely no idea what that means but apparently mathematicians love Fournier’s stuff. Accordingly, scholars have honored him with appellations including The Fourier Series, Fourier Analysis, and Fourier’s Law of Conduction.

So, in honor of the inimitable Frenchman, let’s have some fun with numbers:

Prime numbers are numbers that are divisible only by themselves. And, if you add up the squares of the first seven prime numbers, you get 666.

Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is an irrational number with an infinite number of digits.

The volume of a cylinder is Pi times the radius squared, times height, Therefore a pizza with radius “Z” and height “A” would have the volume of… PI * z * z * a.

There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ways to scramble a Rubik’s Cube.

There are 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856, 403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 ways to arrange a deck of cards.

Therefore, if you shuffle a pack of cards properly, chances are that exact order has never been seen before in the entire history of the universe.

There are zero zeros in Roman numerals. The
Latin word “nulla” was used to represent the concept of zero.

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey typing randomly on a typewriter will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. This theorem has been used to illustrate the concept of infinity and the power of chance.

When asked to name their favorite number from one to one hundred, 9.7 percent of respondents picked the number 7. Seven is a significant number across religions and cultures. There are seven colors in the rainbow, seven days in a week, seven notes on a musical scale, seven seas, and seven continents.

The most popular two-digit number among the respondents was surprisingly the number 13 (selected by 5 percent of respondents). Some of the reasons 13 is considered superstitious include the 13 attendees at the last supper, a witches’ coven generally had 13 members and a traditional gallows had 13 steps,.

The term, “googol “represents the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes. A googolplex is the number 1 followed by a googol zeroes. It is theorized that if you tried to write that huge number out and printed it in a series of volumes, the books would weigh more than the entire planet.

I sincerely hope I never experience the temperature of Minus 40 degrees. However “40 Below” has the distinction of being the only temperature that is the same in both Fahrenheit and Celsius

The Birthday Problem
How many people do you think would need to be in a room in order for there to be a 50% chance that two people share the same birthday? The answer is a surprisingly low 23 people. You can find numerous lengthy explanations online. This birthday problem is used to illustrate the power of probability and the importance of considering all possible outcomes.

Today’s Math Joke
An Indian chief decided it was time he created children and accordingly took three wives. He made one wife a teepee made of deerskin and one a teepee made of bearskin. For the wife he liked the best he went all out and imported a teepee made of hippopotamus hide.

When he returned from the long autumn hunt he visited the first two wives and was very pleased that both were expecting babies. He was even more happy when the wife in the hippopotamus teepee told him she was expecting twins. However he was puzzled that his favorite wife was expecting twins while the other two were each having only one child. He went to the medicine man for his opinion and the wise man said, ‘It is old tribal saying – The sum of the squaw of the hippopotamus equals the sum of the squaws of the two adjacent hides.”

Have a great weekend and Happy Spring.