The Number Devil
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The Number Devil
''The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure'' (german: Der Zahlenteufel. Ein Kopfkissenbuch für alle, die Angst vor der Mathematik haben) is a book for children and young adults that explores mathematics. It was originally written in 1997 in German by Hans Magnus Enzensberger and illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner. The book follows a young boy named Robert, who is taught mathematics by a sly "number devil" called Teplotaxl over the course of twelve dreams. The book was met with mostly positive reviews from critics, approving its description of math while praising its simplicity. Its colorful use of fictional mathematical terms and its creative descriptions of concepts have made it a suggested book for both children and adults troubled with math. ''The Number Devil'' was a bestseller in Europe, and has been translated into English by Michael Henry Heim. Plot Robert is a young boy who suffers from mathematical anxiety due to his boredom in school. His mother is Mrs. Wilson. ...
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WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ...
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Exponentiation
Exponentiation is a mathematical operation, written as , involving two numbers, the '' base'' and the ''exponent'' or ''power'' , and pronounced as " (raised) to the (power of) ". When is a positive integer, exponentiation corresponds to repeated multiplication of the base: that is, is the product of multiplying bases: b^n = \underbrace_. The exponent is usually shown as a superscript to the right of the base. In that case, is called "''b'' raised to the ''n''th power", "''b'' (raised) to the power of ''n''", "the ''n''th power of ''b''", "''b'' to the ''n''th power", or most briefly as "''b'' to the ''n''th". Starting from the basic fact stated above that, for any positive integer n, b^n is n occurrences of b all multiplied by each other, several other properties of exponentiation directly follow. In particular: \begin b^ & = \underbrace_ \\[1ex] & = \underbrace_ \times \underbrace_ \\[1ex] & = b^n \times b^m \end In other words, when multiplying a base raised to ...
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Factorial
In mathematics, the factorial of a non-negative denoted is the product of all positive integers less than or equal The factorial also equals the product of n with the next smaller factorial: \begin n! &= n \times (n-1) \times (n-2) \times (n-3) \times \cdots \times 3 \times 2 \times 1 \\ &= n\times(n-1)!\\ \end For example, 5! = 5\times 4! = 5 \times 4 \times 3 \times 2 \times 1 = 120. The value of 0! is 1, according to the convention for an empty product. Factorials have been discovered in several ancient cultures, notably in Indian mathematics in the canonical works of Jain literature, and by Jewish mystics in the Talmudic book '' Sefer Yetzirah''. The factorial operation is encountered in many areas of mathematics, notably in combinatorics, where its most basic use counts the possible distinct sequences – the permutations – of n distinct objects: there In mathematical analysis, factorials are used in power series for the exponential function an ...
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Permutation
In mathematics, a permutation of a set is, loosely speaking, an arrangement of its members into a sequence or linear order, or if the set is already ordered, a rearrangement of its elements. The word "permutation" also refers to the act or process of changing the linear order of an ordered set. Permutations differ from combinations, which are selections of some members of a set regardless of order. For example, written as tuples, there are six permutations of the set , namely (1, 2, 3), (1, 3, 2), (2, 1, 3), (2, 3, 1), (3, 1, 2), and (3, 2, 1). These are all the possible orderings of this three-element set. Anagrams of words whose letters are different are also permutations: the letters are already ordered in the original word, and the anagram is a reordering of the letters. The study of permutations of finite sets is an important topic in the fields of combinatorics and group theory. Permutations are used in almost every branch of mathematics, and in many other fields of scie ...
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Triangular Array
In mathematics and computing, a triangular array of numbers, polynomials, or the like, is a doubly indexed sequence in which each row is only as long as the row's own index. That is, the ''i''th row contains only ''i'' elements. Examples Notable particular examples include these: *The Bell triangle, whose numbers count the Partition of a set, partitions of a set in which a given element is the largest singleton (mathematics), singleton * Catalan's triangle, which counts strings of parentheses in which no close parenthesis is unmatched * Euler's triangle, which counts permutations with a given number of ascents * Floyd's triangle, whose entries are all of the integers in order * Hosoya's triangle, based on the Fibonacci numbers * Lozanić's triangle, used in the mathematics of chemical compounds * Narayana triangle, counting strings of balanced parentheses with a given number of distinct nestings * Pascal's triangle, whose entries are the binomial coefficients Triangular arrays of ...
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Pascal's Triangle
In mathematics, Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients that arises in probability theory, combinatorics, and algebra. In much of the Western world, it is named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, although other mathematicians studied it centuries before him in India, Persia, China, Germany, and Italy. The rows of Pascal's triangle are conventionally enumerated starting with row n = 0 at the top (the 0th row). The entries in each row are numbered from the left beginning with k = 0 and are usually staggered relative to the numbers in the adjacent rows. The triangle may be constructed in the following manner: In row 0 (the topmost row), there is a unique nonzero entry 1. Each entry of each subsequent row is constructed by adding the number above and to the left with the number above and to the right, treating blank entries as 0. For example, the initial number of row 1 (or any other row) is 1 (the sum of 0 and 1), whereas the numbers 1 and 3 in ...
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Rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit species and its descendants, the world's 305 breeds of domestic rabbit. ''Sylvilagus'' includes 13 wild rabbit species, among them the seven types of cottontail. The European rabbit, which has been introduced on every continent except Antarctica, is familiar throughout the world as a wild prey animal and as a domesticated form of livestock and pet. With its widespread effect on ecologies and cultures, the rabbit is, in many areas of the world, a part of daily life—as food, clothing, a companion, and a source of artistic inspiration. Although once considered rodents, lagomorphs like rabbits have been discovered to have diverged separately and earlier than their rodent cousins and have a number of traits rodents lack, like two extra incis ...
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Fibonacci Numbers
In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from 1 and 1 or sometimes (as did Fibonacci) from 1 and 2. Starting from 0 and 1, the first few values in the sequence are: :0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144. The Fibonacci numbers were first described in Indian mathematics, as early as 200 BC in work by Pingala on enumerating possible patterns of Sanskrit poetry formed from syllables of two lengths. They are named after the Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, later known as Fibonacci, who introduced the sequence to Western European mathematics in his 1202 book ''Liber Abaci''. Fibonacci numbers appear unexpectedly often in mathematics, so much so that there is an entire journal dedicated to their study, the ''Fibonacci Quarterly''. Applications of Fibonacci numbers include co ...
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Triangular Numbers
A triangular number or triangle number counts objects arranged in an equilateral triangle. Triangular numbers are a type of figurate number, other examples being square numbers and cube numbers. The th triangular number is the number of dots in the triangular arrangement with dots on each side, and is equal to the sum of the natural numbers from 1 to . The sequence of triangular numbers, starting with the 0th triangular number, is (This sequence is included in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences .) Formula The triangular numbers are given by the following explicit formulas: T_n= \sum_^n k = 1+2+3+ \dotsb +n = \frac = , where \textstyle is a binomial coefficient. It represents the number of distinct pairs that can be selected from objects, and it is read aloud as " plus one choose two". The first equation can be illustrated using a visual proof. For every triangular number T_n, imagine a "half-square" arrangement of objects corresponding to the triangular numb ...
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Number Devil And Robert
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can be represented by symbols, called ''numerals''; for example, "5" is a numeral that represents the number five. As only a relatively small number of symbols can be memorized, basic numerals are commonly organized in a numeral system, which is an organized way to represent any number. The most common numeral system is the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, which allows for the representation of any number using a combination of ten fundamental numeric symbols, called digits. In addition to their use in counting and measuring, numerals are often used for labels (as with telephone numbers), for ordering (as with serial numbers), and for codes (as with ISBNs). In common usage, a ''numeral'' is not clearly distinguished from the ''number'' ...
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Square Root
In mathematics, a square root of a number is a number such that ; in other words, a number whose ''square'' (the result of multiplying the number by itself, or  ⋅ ) is . For example, 4 and −4 are square roots of 16, because . Every nonnegative real number has a unique nonnegative square root, called the ''principal square root'', which is denoted by \sqrt, where the symbol \sqrt is called the ''radical sign'' or ''radix''. For example, to express the fact that the principal square root of 9 is 3, we write \sqrt = 3. The term (or number) whose square root is being considered is known as the ''radicand''. The radicand is the number or expression underneath the radical sign, in this case 9. For nonnegative , the principal square root can also be written in exponent notation, as . Every positive number has two square roots: \sqrt, which is positive, and -\sqrt, which is negative. The two roots can be written more concisely using the ± sign as \plusmn\sqrt. ...
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Rutabaga
Rutabaga (; North American English) or swede (British English and some Commonwealth English) is a root vegetable, a form of ''Brassica napus'' (which also includes rapeseed). Other names include Swedish turnip, neep (Scots), and turnip (Scottish and Canadian English, Irish English and Manx English). However, elsewhere the name "turnip" usually refers to the related white turnip. The species ''Brassica napus'' originated as a hybrid between the cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') and the turnip (''Brassica rapa''). Rutabaga roots are eaten as human food in various ways, and the leaves can be eaten as a leaf vegetable. The roots and tops are also used for livestock, either fed directly in the winter or foraged in the field during the other seasons. Scotland, Northern and Western England, Wales, the Isle of Man and Ireland had a tradition of carving the roots into lanterns at Halloween. Etymology Rutabaga has many national and regional names. ''Rutabaga'' is the common North Am ...
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