Re: I think numbers should be more colorful !

Article View: sci.math.num-analysis

Article #1263

Back to sci.math.num-analysis Previous Next

#1263

From: David N. Williams
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 12:47

32 lines
2288 bytes

Eliot Coweye wrote:
> IMO the 1 certainly is green, the 2 blue and a 3 is yellow, while 4
> should be orange, 5 brown and 7 pink.8 is red and 9 grey and 0, of
> course, black.
> 
> I think with the right colors, we'll be able to solve more mathematical
> problems, because the colors will add a new dimension to boring
> numbers.
> 
> What do you think?

Probably you haven't heard of the theory of interesting numbers.
Some people where I worked in the late 50's taught me about it.
For nonnegative integers, here's a sample:

One is an interesting number, because it's the only nonzero
number whose square is itself.

Suppose n is an interesting number.  Then n+1 is interesting,
because it comes just after an interesting number.  Voilà!

On the other hand, there must be at least one uninteresting nonnegative
integer, because it would be boring if they were all the same.

So this theory has already generated a deep paradox, just like
set theory.  Maybe not so surprising, given the set theory construction
of the Peano axioms.

Oops, I see this is a digression from numerical analysis...

-- David

Technical Details

Message-ID: <Vljgf.1590$yb2.1304@news.itd.umich.edu>

Path:

arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!news.itd.umich.edu!53ab2750!not-for-mail

References: <1132536553.040661.34200@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

Show Full Headers

Complete Article Headers

X-Google-Thread: 107079,b6c6166e870cb3f1
X-Google-Thread: 108147,b6c6166e870cb3f1
X-Google-Attributes: gid107079,gid108147,public
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!news.itd.umich.edu!53ab2750!not-for-mail
From: "David N. Williams" <david.n.williams@umich.edu>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2
X-Accept-Language: en,pdf
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: sci.math.num-analysis,brasil.unix
Subject: Re: I think numbers should be more colorful !
References: <1132536553.040661.34200@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <1132536553.040661.34200@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <Vljgf.1590$yb2.1304@news.itd.umich.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:47:42 -0500
NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.75.178.162
X-Trace: news.itd.umich.edu 1132577269 207.75.178.162 (Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:47:49 EST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:47:49 EST

Reply to Parent Message