Re: [math-fun] Favourite number

John Baez spoke about three of his favorite numbers at the Rankin Lectures in 2008: "I've noticed over the years that different numbers have their own "personalities". If you're a mathematician doing a calculation and you get the answer 248, it means something completely different than if you get 247 — because the number 248 shows up in all sorts of amazing places, while 247 is just dull. So when I was invited to give the Rankin Lectures in Glasgow, I thought it would be fun to explain this idea with some examples. I decided to give separate talks on three of my favorite numbers: 5, 8, and 24." http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/numbers/ -- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com