Ask HN: What's your favorite number, and why?

9 points | by QuantumNomad_ 13 hours ago

17 comments

  • WorldPeas 12 hours ago
    4 is a good number, but I can't explain why, just feels right
  • Bender 12 hours ago
    All of the Sacred Geometry numbers, mostly because they should up in computing just as much as they show up in Geometry, Astronomy and overall in nature.

    Also 45,000,000,000 because [1]

    [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J9MRYJz9-4 [video][1min]

  • iExploder 12 hours ago
    the coolest number ever - 1337. Approximate melting point of gold in kelvins.
    • Imustaskforhelp 11 hours ago
      1337 immediately reminds me of 1337x.to which is a piracy website :)

      Looks like the word means LEET or (Elite) within BBS forums (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet) [I had wondered about why 1337x.to team named itself this and then asked AI to then get the reference and then searched it again on wikipedia to get to know more information/confirm it, saying this because I didn't know about this reference till today as I wasn't part of that era.]

  • mikewarot 11 hours ago
    τ - Tau, of course. It's the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.

    Pi is tainted by my home state of Indiana's attempts to legislate its value.

  • Cheese48923846 12 hours ago
    tab width = 3

    It's big enough to clearly see indents. But small enough to preserve screen real estate. And no one needs to agree 3 is best because TAB.

  • mhrmsn 12 hours ago
    4, because it can be written as 2+2, 2*2, 2^2, and all the other following hyperoperations Hn(2,2)
  • andogi 4 hours ago
    7777777 — lucky vibes.
  • ljf 12 hours ago
    13, as someone who struggled with their timetables, 13 felt like the verge of wild complex maths
  • andyjohnson0 13 hours ago
    27 is a pretty cool number.
  • yen223 12 hours ago
    91, which to me is a prime number no matter what the maths say
    • andyjohnson0 22 minutes ago
      All odd numbers are obviously prime. Don't believe anyone who says otherwise.
  • grahammccain 12 hours ago
    3. It was my first soccer jersey number.
  • byoung2 12 hours ago
    3...an odd choice, I know
  • tim-tday 12 hours ago
    I like 6, maybe 7.

    I find that can devalue the enjoyment kids get from their inside joke simply by being one of the olds liking their new favorite number(s).

  • Imustaskforhelp 11 hours ago
    2, you can find all odd and even numbers with its shenanigans and the binary system being base 2.

    It's also somewhat of my fascination with silver, being second. I remember this feeling when I was in 5th class or something and me and my friends were talking about lets race to the door and see who gets first.

    I don't even know why I remember this but I do but And we were three friends/classmates and I was just thinking, man I am happy being second. I really don't want gold, I am happy with silver medal :)

    If I think about it nowadays, I think that it sort of means that I am happy with being the second-best, I don't have an "obsession" with being the best (1) within the short-term that it might impact my chances long-term in things.

    I also don't like too-much drama within my life, so I am happy if that drama can get redirected to 1 while I can hopefully try to do my things with patience.

    Also, I have made too many is-odd/is-even projects within multiple languages ;)

    I also like 25/5, I don't know how to explain this but there is a way to write the exponents of 5^n exponentially

    so 5^3=125

    5^4=((1 × 5)+1)_25 = 625

    5^5= ((6 × 5)+1)_25 = 3125

    5^6=((31 × 5)+1)_25= 15625

    5^7=((156 × 5)+1)_25 = 78125

    I don't know I was just playing with numbers until I kind of hit this thing

    As you can see that there is a bit of recursion, you can actually create a formula of 5^n as far as I can tell but I have forgotten the formula

    Actually this also has something to do with 2 in the derivations to find it, as 10/2=5 ;)

    I wanted to find a ways to code exponents quickly, I tried doing it with any other number but I was unable to do that.

    I am not sure what this is called though or if I have discovered something new, It was a trick that I only shared once with my classmates. Nothing too big kinda.

    Maybe some mathematician can chime in here ;) if there is a more mathematical term to what I have found or if what I have found is even new [I extremely doubt it but hey who knows ;) ]

    Either way I was proud of myself for what I had discovered and I also had told my mom about it iirc :]

    (Anecdotally I also tried discovering the sum of n numbers accidentally when I was in 6th class by trying to sum the odd numbers as even + 1 and even as 2 × ( sequence themselves but with half the numbers), maybe a bit of recursion itself until I stumbled on the n (n+1)/2, later I found that gauss had also done something similar maybe even around the same age but I can't even compare myself to the legend that gauss is, but still once again, proud of this too)

    I still kind of remember using pencil if I remember correctly for this thing as pens were still new to me back then.

    Also the explaination of then later the triangle n (n+1) / 2 genuinely felt so intuitive later because of these attempts by me.

    > Actually this also has something to do with 2 in the derivations to find it, as 10/2=5 ;)

  • fuzzfactor 12 hours ago
    I like zero because it's not easy for everybody to put their finger on.

    In some cases you can't even be sure if it's there or not ;)

  • oxfordreno 12 hours ago
    7
    • gib444 11 hours ago
      That's Numberwang!
  • weird_tentacles 12 hours ago
    [dead]