mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, a power of three is a number of the form where is an

integer An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign (−1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the language ...

– that is, the result of

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 re ...

with number

three 3 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 3, three, or III may also refer to: * AD 3, the third year of the AD era * 3 BC, the third year before the AD era * March, the third month Books * '' Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...

as the base and integer as the

exponent 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 re ...

Applications

The powers of three give the place values in the

ternary numeral system A ternary numeral system (also called base 3 or trinary) has three as its base. Analogous to a bit, a ternary digit is a trit (trinary digit). One trit is equivalent to log2 3 (about 1.58496) bits of information. Although ''ternary'' mo ...

. In

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...

, powers of three appear in the Moon–Moser bound on the number of

maximal independent set In graph theory, a maximal independent set (MIS) or maximal stable set is an independent set that is not a subset of any other independent set. In other words, there is no vertex outside the independent set that may join it because it is maxim ...

s of an -vertex

graph Graph may refer to: Mathematics *Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges **Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties *Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discre ...

, and in the time analysis of the

Bron–Kerbosch algorithm In computer science, the Bron–Kerbosch algorithm is an enumeration algorithm for finding all maximal cliques in an undirected graph. That is, it lists all subsets of vertices with the two properties that each pair of vertices in one of the listed ...

for finding these sets. Several important

strongly regular graph In graph theory, a strongly regular graph (SRG) is defined as follows. Let be a regular graph with vertices and degree . is said to be strongly regular if there are also integers and such that: * Every two adjacent vertices have commo ...

s also have a number of vertices that is a power of three, including the

Brouwer–Haemers graph In the mathematical field of graph theory, the Brouwer–Haemers graph is a 20- regular undirected graph with 81 vertices and 810 edges. It is a strongly regular graph, a distance-transitive graph, and a Ramanujan graph. Although its construct ...

(81 vertices),

Berlekamp–van Lint–Seidel graph In graph theory, the Berlekamp–Van Lint–Seidel graph is a locally linear strongly regular graph with parameters (243,22,1,2). This means that it has 243 vertices, 22 edges per vertex (for a total of 2673 edges), exactly one shared neighbor per ...

(243 vertices), and

Games graph In graph theory, the Games graph is the largest known locally linear strongly regular graph. Its parameters as a strongly regular graph are (729,112,1,20). This means that it has 729 vertices, and 40824 edges (112 per vertex). Each edge is in a un ...

(729 vertices). In

enumerative combinatorics Enumerative combinatorics is an area of combinatorics that deals with the number of ways that certain patterns can be formed. Two examples of this type of problem are counting combinations and counting permutations. More generally, given an infin ...

, there are signed subsets of a set of elements. In

polyhedral combinatorics Polyhedral combinatorics is a branch of mathematics, within combinatorics and discrete geometry, that studies the problems of counting and describing the faces of convex polyhedra and higher-dimensional convex polytopes. Research in polyhedral comb ...

, the

hypercube In geometry, a hypercube is an ''n''-dimensional analogue of a square () and a cube (). It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1- skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel line segments aligned in each of the space's dimensions, ...

and all other

Hanner polytope In geometry, a Hanner polytope is a convex polytope constructed recursively by Cartesian product and polar dual operations. Hanner polytopes are named after Olof Hanner, who introduced them in 1956.. Construction The Hanner polytopes are construct ...

s have a number of faces (not counting the

empty set In mathematics, the empty set is the unique set having no elements; its size or cardinality (count of elements in a set) is zero. Some axiomatic set theories ensure that the empty set exists by including an axiom of empty set, while in other ...

as a face) that is a power of three. For example, a , or

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

, has 4 vertices, 4 edges and 1 face, and . Kalai's conjecture states that this is the minimum possible number of faces for a

centrally symmetric In geometry, a point reflection (point inversion, central inversion, or inversion through a point) is a type of isometry of Euclidean space. An object that is invariant under a point reflection is said to possess point symmetry; if it is invari ...

polytope. In

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 ...

and

fractal geometry In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illus ...

, inverse power-of-three lengths occur in the constructions leading to the

Koch snowflake The Koch snowflake (also known as the Koch curve, Koch star, or Koch island) is a fractal curve and one of the earliest fractals to have been described. It is based on the Koch curve, which appeared in a 1904 paper titled "On a Continuous Curv ...

Cantor set In mathematics, the Cantor set is a set of points lying on a single line segment that has a number of unintuitive properties. It was discovered in 1874 by Henry John Stephen Smith and introduced by German mathematician Georg Cantor in 1883. Thr ...

, Sierpinski carpet and

Menger sponge In mathematics, the Menger sponge (also known as the Menger cube, Menger universal curve, Sierpinski cube, or Sierpinski sponge) is a fractal curve. It is a three-dimensional generalization of the one-dimensional Cantor set and two-dimensional Si ...

, in the number of elements in the construction steps for a Sierpinski triangle, and in many formulas related to these sets. There are possible states in an -disk

Tower of Hanoi The Tower of Hanoi (also called The problem of Benares Temple or Tower of Brahma or Lucas' Tower and sometimes pluralized as Towers, or simply pyramid puzzle) is a mathematical game or puzzle consisting of three rods and a number of disks of va ...

puzzle or vertices in its associated Hanoi graph. In a

balance puzzle A balance puzzle or weighing puzzle is a logic puzzle about balancing items—often coins—to determine which holds a different value, by using balance scales a limited number of times. These differ from puzzles that assign weights to items, ...

with weighing steps, there are possible outcomes (sequences where the scale tilts left or right or stays balanced); powers of three often arise in the solutions to these puzzles, and it has been suggested that (for similar reasons) the powers of three would make an ideal system of

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

s. In

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

, all powers of three are perfect totient numbers. The sums of distinct powers of three form a

Stanley sequence In mathematics, a Stanley sequence is an integer sequence generated by a greedy algorithm that chooses the sequence members to avoid arithmetic progressions. If S is a finite set of non-negative integers on which no three elements form an arithmetic ...

, the lexicographically smallest sequence that does not contain an

arithmetic progression An arithmetic progression or arithmetic sequence () is a sequence of numbers such that the difference between the consecutive terms is constant. For instance, the sequence 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, . . . is an arithmetic progression with a common differ ...

of three elements. A

conjecture In mathematics, a conjecture is a conclusion or a proposition that is proffered on a tentative basis without proof. Some conjectures, such as the Riemann hypothesis (still a conjecture) or Fermat's Last Theorem (a conjecture until proven in 19 ...

Paul Erdős Paul Erdős ( hu, Erdős Pál ; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in ...

states that this sequence contains no

powers of two A power of two is a number of the form where is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer as the exponent. In a context where only integers are considered, is restricted to non-negative ...

other than 1, 4, and 256.

Graham's number Graham's number is an immense number that arose as an upper bound on the answer of a problem in the mathematical field of Ramsey theory. It is much larger than many other large numbers such as Skewes's number and Moser's number, both of which ar ...

, an enormous number arising from a proof in

Ramsey theory Ramsey theory, named after the British mathematician and philosopher Frank P. Ramsey, is a branch of mathematics that focuses on the appearance of order in a substructure given a structure of a known size. Problems in Ramsey theory typically ask a ...

, is (in the version popularized by

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...

) a power of three. However, the actual publication of the proof by

Ronald Graham Ronald Lewis Graham (October 31, 1935July 6, 2020) was an American mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years". He ...

used a different number.

The 0th to 63rd powers of three

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Power Of Three Integers

Applications

The 0th to 63rd powers of three

See also

References