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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

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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+2115 DOUBLE-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 be used as cardinal numbers, which may go by various names. Natural numbers may also be used as ordinal numbers.

Table of small natural numbers
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69
70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109
110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119
120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129
130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139
140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149
150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159
160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169
170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179
180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189
190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199
200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209
210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219
220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229
230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239
240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249
250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259
260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269
270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279
280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289
290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299
300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309
310 311 312 313 314 318
400 500 600 700 800 900
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 70,000 80,000 90,000
105 106 107 108 109 1012
larger numbers, including 10100 and 1010100

Mathematical significance

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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

Cultural or practical significance

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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
List of integers notable for their use in units, measurements and scales
List of integers notable in computing

Classes of natural numbers

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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.

Prime numbers

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A prime number is a positive integer which has exactly two divisors: 1 and itself.

The first 100 prime numbers are:

Table of first 100 prime numbers
  2   3   5   7  11  13  17  19  23  29
 31  37  41  43  47  53  59  61  67  71
 73  79  83  89  97 101 103 107 109 113
127 131 137 139 149 151 157 163 167 173
179 181 191 193 197 199 211 223 227 229
233 239 241 251 257 263 269 271 277 281
283 293 307 311 313 317 331 337 347 349
353 359 367 373 379 383 389 397 401 409
419 421 431 433 439 443 449 457 461 463
467 479 487 491 499 503 509 521 523 541

Highly composite numbers

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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 first 20 highly composite numbers are:

1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 120, 180, 240, 360, 720, 840, 1260, 1680, 2520, 5040, 7560

Perfect numbers

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A perfect number is an integer that is the sum of its positive proper divisors (all divisors except itself).

The first 10 perfect numbers:

  1.   6
  2.   28
  3.   496
  4.   8128
  5.   33 550 336
  6.   8 589 869 056
  7.   137 438 691 328
  8.   2 305 843 008 139 952 128
  9.   2 658 455 991 569 831 744 654 692 615 953 842 176
  10.   191 561 942 608 236 107 294 793 378 084 303 638 130 997 321 548 169 216

Integers

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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+2124 DOUBLE-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

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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.

Value 1000m Name Symbol
1000 10001 Kilo k
1000000 10002 Mega M
1000000000 10003 Giga G
1000000000000 10004 Tera T
1000000000000000 10005 Peta P
1000000000000000000 10006 Exa E
1000000000000000000000 10007 Zetta Z
1000000000000000000000000 10008 Yotta Y
1000000000000000000000000000 10009 Ronna R
1000000000000000000000000000000 100010 Quetta Q

Rational numbers

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A rational number is any number that can be expressed as the quotient or fraction p/q of two integers, a numerator p and a non-zero denominator q.[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+211A DOUBLE-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).

Real numbers

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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.

Algebraic numbers

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Transcendental numbers

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Irrational but not known to be transcendental

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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

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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.

Numbers not known with high precision

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Some real numbers, including transcendental numbers, are not known with high precision.

Hypercomplex numbers

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Hypercomplex number is a term for an element of a unital algebra over the field of real numbers. The complex numbers are often symbolised by a boldface C (or blackboard bold  , Unicode U+2102 DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL C), while the set of quaternions is denoted by a boldface H (or blackboard bold  , Unicode U+210D DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL H).

Algebraic complex numbers

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  • Imaginary unit:  
  • nth roots of unity:  , while  , GCD(k, n) = 1

Other hypercomplex numbers

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Transfinite numbers

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Transfinite numbers are numbers that are "infinite" in the sense that they are larger than all finite numbers, yet not necessarily absolutely infinite.

Numbers representing physical quantities

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Physical quantities that appear in the universe are often described using physical constants.

Numbers representing geographical and astronomical distances

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Numbers without specific values

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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]

Named numbers

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Hardy–Ramanujan Number". Archived from the original on 2004-04-08.
  2. ^ 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. ISSN 0954-0261. PMID 32527165. S2CID 219605482.
  3. ^ "Demystified | Why a baker's dozen is thirteen". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
  4. ^ "Eighty-six – Definition of eighty-six". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 2013-04-08.
  5. ^ Rosen, Kenneth (2007). Discrete Mathematics and its Applications (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. pp. 105, 158–160. ISBN 978-0-07-288008-3.
  6. ^ Rouse, Margaret. "Mathematical Symbols". Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  7. ^ Lipscombe, Trevor Davis (2021-05-06), "Super Powers: Calculate Squares, Square Roots, Cube Roots, and More", Quick(er) Calculations, Oxford University Press, pp. 103–124, doi:10.1093/oso/9780198852650.003.0010, ISBN 978-0-19-885265-0, retrieved 2021-10-28
  8. ^ "Nick's Mathematical Puzzles: Solution 29". Archived from the original on 2011-10-18.
  9. ^ "The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers" by David Wells, page 69
  10. ^ Sequence OEISA019692.
  11. ^ See Apéry 1979.
  12. ^ "The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers" by David Wells, page 33
  13. ^ Erdős, P. (1948), "On arithmetical properties of Lambert series" (PDF), J. Indian Math. Soc., New Series, 12: 63–66, MR 0029405
  14. ^ Borwein, Peter B. (1992), "On the irrationality of certain series", Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 112 (1): 141–146, Bibcode:1992MPCPS.112..141B, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.867.5919, doi:10.1017/S030500410007081X, MR 1162938, S2CID 123705311
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ S. Kato, 'Irrationality of reciprocal sums of Fibonacci numbers', Master's thesis, Keio Univ. 1996
  17. ^ Duverney, Daniel, Keiji Nishioka, Kumiko Nishioka and Iekata Shiokawa; 'Transcendence of Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction and reciprocal sums of Fibonacci numbers';
  18. ^ "A001620 - OEIS". oeis.org. Retrieved 2020-10-14.
  19. ^ a b Rivoal, Tanguy (2012). "On the arithmetic nature of the values of the gamma function, Euler's constant, and Gompertz's constant". Michigan Mathematical Journal. 61 (2): 239–254. doi:10.1307/mmj/1339011525. ISSN 0026-2285.
  20. ^ a b Lagarias, Jeffrey C. (2013-07-19). "Euler's constant: Euler's work and modern developments". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 50 (4): 527–628. arXiv:1303.1856. doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-2013-01423-X. ISSN 0273-0979.
  21. ^ Murty, M. Ram; Saradha, N. (2010-12-01). "Euler–Lehmer constants and a conjecture of Erdös". Journal of Number Theory. 130 (12): 2671–2682. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.261.753. doi:10.1016/j.jnt.2010.07.004. ISSN 0022-314X.
  22. ^ Murty, M. Ram; Zaytseva, Anastasia (2013-01-01). "Transcendence of Generalized Euler Constants". The American Mathematical Monthly. 120 (1): 48–54. doi:10.4169/amer.math.monthly.120.01.048. ISSN 0002-9890. S2CID 20495981.
  23. ^ "A073003 - OEIS". oeis.org. Retrieved 2020-10-14.
  24. ^ Nesterenko, Yu. V. (January 2016), "On Catalan's constant", Proceedings of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics, 292 (1): 153–170, doi:10.1134/s0081543816010107, S2CID 124903059
  25. ^ "Khinchin's Constant".
  26. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Khinchin's constant". MathWorld.
  27. ^ a b Briggs, Keith (1997). Feigenbaum scaling in discrete dynamical systems (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Melbourne.
  28. ^ OEISA065483
  29. ^ OEISA082695
  30. ^ "Lévy Constant".
  31. ^ "The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers" by David Wells, page 29.
  32. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "Gauss–Kuzmin–Wirsing Constant". MathWorld.
  33. ^ OEISA065478
  34. ^ OEISA065493
  35. ^ "Laplace Limit".
  36. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: Avogadro constant". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  37. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: electron mass". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  38. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: fine-structure constant". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  39. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: Newtonian constant of gravitation". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  40. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: molar mass constant". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  41. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: Planck constant". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  42. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: Rydberg constant". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  43. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: speed of light in vacuum". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  44. ^ "2022 CODATA Value: vacuum electric permittivity". The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. May 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-18.
  45. ^ "Bags of Talent, a Touch of Panic, and a Bit of Luck: The Case of Non-Numerical Vague Quantifiers" from Linguista Pragensia, Nov. 2, 2010 Archived 2012-07-31 at archive.today
  46. ^ Boston Globe, July 13, 2016: "The surprising history of indefinite hyperbolic numerals"

Further reading

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  • Kingdom of Infinite Number: A Field Guide by Bryan Bunch, W.H. Freeman & Company, 2001. ISBN 0-7167-4447-3
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