The Penguin Dictionary Of Curious And Interesting Numbers
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The Penguin Dictionary Of Curious And Interesting Numbers
''The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers'' is a reference book for recreational mathematics and elementary number theory written by David Wells. The first edition was published in paperback by Penguin Books in 1986 in the UK, and a revised edition appeared in 1997 (). Contents The entries are arranged in increasing order of magnitude, with the exception of the first entry on −1 and ''i''. The book includes some irrational numbers below 10 but concentrates on integers, and has an entry for every integer up to 42. The final entry is for Graham's number. In addition to the dictionary itself, the book includes a list of mathematicians in chronological sequence (all born before 1890), a short glossary, and a brief bibliography. The back of the book contains eight short tables "for the benefit of readers who cannot wait to look for their own patterns and properties", including lists of polygonal numbers, Fibonacci numbers, prime numbers, factorials, decimal rec ...
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Recreational Mathematics
Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited to being an endeavor for amateurs, many topics in this field require no knowledge of advanced mathematics. Recreational mathematics involves mathematical puzzles and games, often appealing to children and untrained adults, inspiring their further study of the subject. The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) includes recreational mathematics as one of its seventeen Special Interest Groups, commenting: Mathematical competitions (such as those sponsored by mathematical associations) are also categorized under recreational mathematics. Topics Some of the more well-known topics in recreational mathematics are Rubik's Cubes, magic squares, fractals, logic puzzles and mathematical chess problems, but this area of mathematics incl ...
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Polygonal Number
In mathematics, a polygonal number is a number represented as dots or pebbles arranged in the shape of a regular polygon. The dots are thought of as alphas (units). These are one type of 2-dimensional figurate numbers. Definition and examples The number 10 for example, can be arranged as a triangle (see triangular number): : But 10 cannot be arranged as a square (geometry), square. The number 9, on the other hand, can be (see square number): : Some numbers, like 36, can be arranged both as a square and as a triangle (see square triangular number): : By convention, 1 is the first polygonal number for any number of sides. The rule for enlarging the polygon to the next size is to extend two adjacent arms by one point and to then add the required extra sides between those points. In the following diagrams, each extra layer is shown as in red. Triangular numbers : Square numbers : Polygons with higher numbers of sides, such as pentagons and hexagons, can also be constructe ...
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College Mathematics Journal
The ''College Mathematics Journal'' is an expository magazine aimed at teachers of college mathematics, particular those teaching the first two years. It is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America and is a continuation of ''Two-Year College Mathematics Journal''. It covers all aspects of mathematics. It publishes articles intended to enhance undergraduate instruction and classroom learning, including expository articles, short notes, problems, and "mathematical ephemera" such as fallacious proofs, quotations, cartoons, poetry, and humor. Paid circulation in 2008 was 9,000 and total circulation was 9,500. The MAA gives the George Pólya Awards annually "for articles of expository excellence" published in the ''College Mathematics Journal''. References External links *''The College Mathematics Journal''at JSTOR''The College Mathematics Journal''at Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating i ...
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Index (publishing)
An index (plural: usually indexes, more rarely indices; see below) is a list of words or phrases ('headings') and associated pointers ('locators') to where useful material relating to that heading can be found in a document or collection of documents. Examples are an index in the back matter of a book and an index that serves as a library catalog. An index differs from a word index, or ''concordance'', in focusing on the subject of the text rather than the exact words in a text, and it differs from a table of contents because the index is ordered by subject, regardless of whether it is early or late in the book, while the listed items in a table of contents is placed in the same order as the book. In a traditional ''back-of-the-book index'', the headings will include names of people, places, events, and concepts selected as being relevant and of interest to a possible reader of the book. The indexer performing the selection may be the author, the editor, or a professional inde ...
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Alphabetical Order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is the generalization of the alphabetical order to other data types, such as sequences of numbers or other ordered mathematical objects. When applied to strings or sequences that may contain digits, numbers or more elaborate types of elements, in addition to alphabetical characters, the alphabetical order is generally called a lexicographical order. To determine which of two strings of characters comes first when arranging in alphabetical order, their first letters are compared. If they differ, then the string whose first letter comes earlier in the alphabet comes before the other string. If the first letters are the same, then the second letters are compared, and so on. If a position is reached where one string has no more letters to compare ...
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Divisor Function
In mathematics, and specifically in number theory, a divisor function is an arithmetic function related to the divisors of an integer. When referred to as ''the'' divisor function, it counts the ''number of divisors of an integer'' (including 1 and the number itself). It appears in a number of remarkable identities, including relationships on the Riemann zeta function and the Eisenstein series of modular forms. Divisor functions were studied by Ramanujan, who gave a number of important Modular arithmetic, congruences and identity (mathematics), identities; these are treated separately in the article Ramanujan's sum. A related function is the divisor summatory function, which, as the name implies, is a sum over the divisor function. Definition The sum of positive divisors function σ''z''(''n''), for a real or complex number ''z'', is defined as the summation, sum of the ''z''th Exponentiation, powers of the positive divisors of ''n''. It can be expressed in Summation#Capital ...
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φ(n)
In number theory, Euler's totient function counts the positive integers up to a given integer that are relatively prime to . It is written using the Greek letter phi as \varphi(n) or \phi(n), and may also be called Euler's phi function. In other words, it is the number of integers in the range for which the greatest common divisor is equal to 1. The integers of this form are sometimes referred to as totatives of . For example, the totatives of are the six numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8. They are all relatively prime to 9, but the other three numbers in this range, 3, 6, and 9 are not, since and . Therefore, . As another example, since for the only integer in the range from 1 to is 1 itself, and . Euler's totient function is a multiplicative function, meaning that if two numbers and are relatively prime, then . This function gives the order of the multiplicative group of integers modulo (the group of units of the ring \Z/n\Z). It is also used for defining the RSA e ...
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Prime Factorization
In number theory, integer factorization is the decomposition of a composite number into a product of smaller integers. If these factors are further restricted to prime numbers, the process is called prime factorization. When the numbers are sufficiently large, no efficient non-quantum integer factorization algorithm is known. However, it has not been proven that such an algorithm does not exist. The presumed difficulty of this problem is important for the algorithms used in cryptography such as RSA public-key encryption and the RSA digital signature. Many areas of mathematics and computer science have been brought to bear on the problem, including elliptic curves, algebraic number theory, and quantum computing. In 2019, Fabrice Boudot, Pierrick Gaudry, Aurore Guillevic, Nadia Heninger, Emmanuel Thomé and Paul Zimmermann factored a 240-digit (795-bit) number (RSA-240) utilizing approximately 900 core-years of computing power. The researchers estimated that a 1024-bit RSA mod ...
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Repunit
In recreational mathematics, a repunit is a number like 11, 111, or 1111 that contains only the digit 1 — a more specific type of repdigit. The term stands for repeated unit and was coined in 1966 by Albert H. Beiler in his book ''Recreations in the Theory of Numbers''. A repunit prime is a repunit that is also a prime number. Primes that are repunits in base-2 are Mersenne primes. As of March 2022, the largest known prime number , the largest probable prime ''R''8177207 and the largest elliptic curve primality prime ''R''49081 are all repunits. Definition The base-''b'' repunits are defined as (this ''b'' can be either positive or negative) :R_n^\equiv 1 + b + b^2 + \cdots + b^ = \qquad\mbox, b, \ge2, n\ge1. Thus, the number ''R''''n''(''b'') consists of ''n'' copies of the digit 1 in base-''b'' representation. The first two repunits base-''b'' for ''n'' = 1 and ''n'' = 2 are :R_1^ 1 \qquad \text \qquad R_2^ b+1\qquad\text\ , b, \ge2. In ...
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Divisor
In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer m that may be multiplied by some integer to produce n. In this case, one also says that n is a multiple of m. An integer n is divisible or evenly divisible by another integer m if m is a divisor of n; this implies dividing n by m leaves no remainder. Definition An integer is divisible by a nonzero integer if there exists an integer such that n=km. This is written as :m\mid n. Other ways of saying the same thing are that divides , is a divisor of , is a factor of , and is a multiple of . If does not divide , then the notation is m\not\mid n. Usually, is required to be nonzero, but is allowed to be zero. With this convention, m \mid 0 for every nonzero integer . Some definitions omit the requirement that m be nonzero. General Divisors can be negative as well as positive, although sometimes the term is restricted to positive divisors. For example, there are six divisors of 4; they ar ...
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Reciprocal (mathematics)
In mathematics, a multiplicative inverse or reciprocal for a number ''x'', denoted by 1/''x'' or ''x''−1, is a number which when multiplied by ''x'' yields the multiplicative identity, 1. The multiplicative inverse of a fraction ''a''/''b'' is ''b''/''a''. For the multiplicative inverse of a real number, divide 1 by the number. For example, the reciprocal of 5 is one fifth (1/5 or 0.2), and the reciprocal of 0.25 is 1 divided by 0.25, or 4. The reciprocal function, the function ''f''(''x'') that maps ''x'' to 1/''x'', is one of the simplest examples of a function which is its own inverse (an involution). Multiplying by a number is the same as dividing by its reciprocal and vice versa. For example, multiplication by 4/5 (or 0.8) will give the same result as division by 5/4 (or 1.25). Therefore, multiplication by a number followed by multiplication by its reciprocal yields the original number (since the product of the number and its reciprocal is 1). The term ''reciprocal' ...
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Decimal Fraction
The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. The way of denoting numbers in the decimal system is often referred to as ''decimal notation''. A ''decimal numeral'' (also often just ''decimal'' or, less correctly, ''decimal number''), refers generally to the notation of a number in the decimal numeral system. Decimals may sometimes be identified by a decimal separator (usually "." or "," as in or ). ''Decimal'' may also refer specifically to the digits after the decimal separator, such as in " is the approximation of to ''two decimals''". Zero-digits after a decimal separator serve the purpose of signifying the precision of a value. The numbers that may be represented in the decimal system are the decimal fractions. That is, fractions of the form , where is an integer, and ...
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