This is a list of notable numbers and articles about notable numbers. The list does not contain all numbers in existence as most of the number sets are infinite. Numbers may be included in the list based on their mathematical, historical or cultural notability, but all numbers have qualities that could arguably make them notable. Even the smallest "uninteresting" number is paradoxically interesting for that very property. This is known as the interesting number paradox.
The definition of what is classed as a number is rather diffuse and based on historical distinctions. For example, the pair of numbers (3,4) is commonly regarded as a number when it is in the form of a complex number (3+4i), but not when it is in the form of a vector (3,4). This list will also be categorized with the standard convention of types of numbers.
This list focuses on numbers as mathematical objects and is not a list of numerals, which are linguistic devices: nouns, adjectives, or adverbs that designate numbers. The distinction is drawn between the number five (an abstract object equal to 2+3), and the numeral five (the noun referring to the number).
Natural numbers are a subset of the integers and are of historical and pedagogical value as they can be used for counting and often have ethno-cultural significance (see below). Beyond this, natural numbers are widely used as a building block for other number systems including the integers, rational numbers and real numbers. Natural numbers are those used for counting (as in "there are six (6) coins on the table") and ordering (as in "this is the third (3rd) largest city in the country"). In common language, words used for counting are "cardinal numbers" and words used for ordering are "ordinal numbers". Defined by the Peano axioms, the natural numbers form an infinitely large set. Often referred to as "the naturals", the natural numbers are usually symbolised by a boldface N (or blackboard bold, Unicode U+2115ℕDOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL N).
The inclusion of 0 in the set of natural numbers is ambiguous and subject to individual definitions. In set theory and computer science, 0 is typically considered a natural number. In number theory, it usually is not. The ambiguity can be solved with the terms "non-negative integers", which includes 0, and "positive integers", which does not.
Natural numbers may have properties specific to the individual number or may be part of a set (such as prime numbers) of numbers with a particular property.
List of mathematically significant natural numbers
1, the multiplicative identity. Also the only natural number (not including 0) that is not prime or composite.
2, the base of the binary number system, used in almost all modern computers and information systems. Also the only natural even number to also be prime.
3, 22-1, the first Mersenne prime and first Fermat number. It is the first odd prime, and it is also the 2 bit integer maximum value.
5, the sum of the first two primes and only prime which is the sum of 2 consecutive primes. The ratio of the length from the side to a diagonal of a regular pentagon is the golden ratio.
6, the first of the series of perfect numbers, whose proper factors sum to the number itself.
255, 28 − 1, the smallest perfect totient number that is neither a power of three nor thrice a prime; it is also the largest number that can be represented using an 8-bit unsigned integer.
1729, the Hardy–Ramanujan number, also known as the second taxicab number; that is, the smallest positive integer that can be written as the sum of two positive cubes in two different ways.[1]
Along with their mathematical properties, many integers have cultural significance[2] or are also notable for their use in computing and measurement. As mathematical properties (such as divisibility) can confer practical utility, there may be interplay and connections between the cultural or practical significance of an integer and its mathematical properties.
List of integers notable for their cultural meanings
40, considered a significant number in Tengrism and Turkish folklore. Multiple customs, such as those relating to how many days one must visit someone after a death in the family, include the number forty.
42, the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything" in the popular 1979 science fiction work The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
65535, 216 − 1, the maximum value of a 16-bit unsigned integer.
65536, 216, the number of possible 16-bit combinations.
65537, 216 + 1, the most popular RSA public key prime exponent in most SSL/TLS certificates on the Web/Internet.
16777216, 224, or 166; the hexadecimal "million" (0x1000000), and the total number of possible color combinations in 24/32-bit True Color computer graphics.
Subsets of the natural numbers, such as the prime numbers, may be grouped into sets, for instance based on the divisibility of their members. Infinitely many such sets are possible. A list of notable classes of natural numbers may be found at classes of natural numbers.
A highly composite number (HCN) is a positive integer with more divisors than any smaller positive integer. They are often used in geometry, grouping and time measurement.
The integers are a set of numbers commonly encountered in arithmetic and number theory. There are many subsets of the integers, including the natural numbers, prime numbers, perfect numbers, etc. Many integers are notable for their mathematical properties. Integers are usually symbolised by a boldface Z (or blackboard bold, Unicode U+2124ℤDOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL Z); this became the symbol for the integers based on the German word for "numbers" (Zahlen).
Notable integers include −1, the additive inverse of unity, and 0, the additive identity.
As with the natural numbers, the integers may also have cultural or practical significance. For instance, −40 is the equal point in the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales.
SI prefixes
One important use of integers is in orders of magnitude. A power of 10 is a number 10k, where k is an integer. For instance, with k = 0, 1, 2, 3, ..., the appropriate powers of ten are 1, 10, 100, 1000, ... Powers of ten can also be fractional: for instance, k = -3 gives 1/1000, or 0.001. This is used in scientific notation, real numbers are written in the form m × 10n. The number 394,000 is written in this form as 3.94 × 105.
Integers are used as prefixes in the SI system. A metric prefix is a unit prefix that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a multiple or fraction of the unit. Each prefix has a unique symbol that is prepended to the unit symbol. The prefix kilo-, for example, may be added to gram to indicate multiplication by one thousand: one kilogram is equal to one thousand grams. The prefix milli-, likewise, may be added to metre to indicate division by one thousand; one millimetre is equal to one thousandth of a metre.
A rational number is any number that can be expressed as the quotient or fractionp/q of two integers, a numeratorp and a non-zero denominatorq.[5] Since q may be equal to 1, every integer is trivially a rational number. The set of all rational numbers, often referred to as "the rationals", the field of rationals or the field of rational numbers is usually denoted by a boldface Q (or blackboard bold, Unicode U+211AℚDOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL Q);[6] it was thus denoted in 1895 by Giuseppe Peano after quoziente, Italian for "quotient".
Rational numbers such as 0.12 can be represented in infinitely many ways, e.g. zero-point-one-two (0.12), three twenty-fifths (3/25), nine seventy-fifths (9/75), etc. This can be mitigated by representing rational numbers in a canonical form as an irreducible fraction.
A list of rational numbers is shown below. The names of fractions can be found at numeral (linguistics).
Table of notable rational numbers
Decimal expansion
Fraction
Notability
1.0
1/1
One is the multiplicative identity. One is a rational number, as it is equal to 1/1.
One half occurs commonly in mathematical equations and in real world proportions. One half appears in the formula for the area of a triangle: 1/2 × base × perpendicular height and in the formulae for figurate numbers, such as triangular numbers and pentagonal numbers.
3.142 857...
22/7
A widely used approximation for the number . It can be proven that this number exceeds .
0.166 666...
1/6
One sixth. Often appears in mathematical equations, such as in the sum of squares of the integers and in the solution to the Basel problem.
Real numbers
Real numbers are least upper bounds of sets of rational numbers that are bounded above, or greatest lower bounds of sets of rational numbers that are bounded below, or limits of convergent sequences of rational numbers. real numbers that are not rational numbers are called irrational numbers. The real numbers are categorised as algebraic numbers (which are the root of a polynomial with rational coefficients) or transcendental numbers, which are not; all rational numbers are algebraic.
(cannot be written as expressions involving integers and the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and the extraction of roots)
1.303577269034296391257099112153
Defined as the unique positive real root of a certain polynomial of degree 71. The limit ratio between subsequent numbers in the binary Look-and-say sequence (OEIS: A014715).
The only real solution of .(OEIS: A058265) The limit ratio between subsequent numbers in the Tribonacci sequence.(OEIS: A000073) Appears in the volume and coordinates of the snub cube and some related polyhedra.
Some numbers are known to be irrational numbers, but have not been proven to be transcendental. This differs from the algebraic numbers, which are known not to be transcendental.
Real but not known to be irrational, nor transcendental
For some numbers, it is not known whether they are algebraic or transcendental. The following list includes real numbers that have not been proved to be irrational, nor transcendental.
Believed to be transcendental but not proven to be so. However, it was shown that at least one of and the Euler-Gompertz constant is transcendental.[19][20] It was also shown that all but at most one number in an infinite list containing have to be transcendental.[21][22]
Many languages have words expressing indefinite and fictitious numbers—inexact terms of indefinite size, used for comic effect, for exaggeration, as placeholder names, or when precision is unnecessary or undesirable. One technical term for such words is "non-numerical vague quantifier".[45] Such words designed to indicate large quantities can be called "indefinite hyperbolic numerals".[46]
^Ayonrinde, Oyedeji A.; Stefatos, Anthi; Miller, Shadé; Richer, Amanda; Nadkarni, Pallavi; She, Jennifer; Alghofaily, Ahmad; Mngoma, Nomusa (2020-06-12). "The salience and symbolism of numbers across cultural beliefs and practice". International Review of Psychiatry. 33 (1–2): 179–188. doi:10.1080/09540261.2020.1769289. ISSN0954-0261. PMID32527165. S2CID219605482.
^André-Jeannin, Richard; 'Irrationalité de la somme des inverses de certaines suites récurrentes.'; Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences - Series I - Mathematics, vol. 308, issue 19 (1989), pp. 539-541.
^S. Kato, 'Irrationality of reciprocal sums of Fibonacci numbers', Master's thesis, Keio Univ. 1996
^Nesterenko, Yu. V. (January 2016), "On Catalan's constant", Proceedings of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics, 292 (1): 153–170, doi:10.1134/s0081543816010107, S2CID124903059