I don’t know who that bearded fellow is, and I don’t care enough to find out. For anyone who’d like to tell me, instead please reply with some of your favourite numbers, colours, and/or historical anecdotes.
144 is a dozen dozen, also known as a gross. I like it because it’s got so damn many factors, it can be divided in all kinds of ways. I think we should switch to the dozenal (base 12) system, because it would make multiplication and division easier.
Base 12 is nice. It feels managably small (while remaining a super highly composite number. The next super highly composite number (which I also like) is 60.
2520 is the first number divisible by 1-10, but that’s a bit much.
Your views have merit and it’s a shame that they will remain largely untested amongst the greater populace for repercussions unknowable perhaps forevermore.
In 1942 England was dealing with bombings from Germany. Not yet rockets, these were bombs dropped by plane. So eventually he British took one of the destroyed fields, and propped up an entire city made exclusively out of wood. Wooden buildings. Wooden people. Wooden cars. Ect. Build fast, painted fast. Goes up over the coarse of 2 days.
So when the Germans (nazis) returned a week later to take surveilence of where they need to bomb on their next run, they see this whole town that they didn’t even know about on their maps. They decided to bomb it.
I forget what message Britain sent over the telegraph the next day, but it was something sarcastic.
Then, 2 years later, Germany tried to pull the same stunt in Holland. They wanted the allies to bomb this air strip they just installed. Except it too was all wood, and fake. So when the Allies learned of this new air strip, they sent a bombing crew of 19 bombers. They flew overhead, and only 1 plane released it’s payload. It dropped it’s bomb, and then…no explosion. They had dropped a wooden bomb, with the words “wood 4 wood” carved on it.
The allies were saying to the Germans “Bitch, we CREATED this trick! We know exactly what you did, and we aren’t fooled.”
Now, you may wonder why send an entire fleet, if they knew it was fake. The other 18 bombers had real bombs loaded, just in case they needed them. They didn’t. They just released the 1 wooden bomb.
I always thought that was hilarious. That and the ghost army of 1944.
My favorite number is i, often substituted in engineering with j. I love how something that seems so esoteric in is core definition actually describes an easily understood physical property of very basic electronic components, that being impedance.
Oooo, I also love chimerical colours. Especially because I remember them after seeing them and can reproduce them visually in my mind and can picture them anytime I want after I’ve seen them and now reality is weirdly underwhelming because its color pallette is not only limited but boringer than it otherwise could (and perhaps should) actually be.
Favorite number is 8520 which is the postcode for a city where I uses to do telephone support. I hated the job but the number is easy to type on a numerical keyboard, so it always made me happy when someone from there called.
I don’t have a favorite color, but I do have a preference for certain palettes.
Historical anecdote. I hope you like trains. The movie Doctor Zhivago was filmed during the Cold War, and since the setting is in Russia, it was impossible for Hollywood to do on location. Most of it was filmed in Spain and Portugal, but not all of the train scenes could be. See, the train track in Russia has a different (smaller) gauge than in Europe, with the exception of Finland who adopted the russian gauge for geographical reasons. Another hurdle though was that nobody had the Russian trains either, so they had to build them from scratch using old construction drawings from before the Cold War, where Finnish factories had produced some trains for Russia. So the Finnish factory rebooted in the mid 1960s to build a train and wagons from the 1900s, just for this movie.
You will not find this info on wikipedia, which only mentions the Spanish trains.
Fun fact about wikipedia, a friend of mine attended wikimania. He told me that while there, he learned that many of the volunteers are neurodivergent men, this is why wikipedia contains so much detailed information on birds and trains.
Train subculture goes back generations. It’s a.techmeme from an era where autists were trainmen because they were (amongst) the only ones who could see the repercussions of this new and exciting technological leap.
I remember once going to see him [Ramanujan] when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi-cab No. 1729, and remarked that the number seemed to be rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavourable omen. “No,” he replied, “it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”
I don’t know who that bearded fellow is, and I don’t care enough to find out. For anyone who’d like to tell me, instead please reply with some of your favourite numbers, colours, and/or historical anecdotes.
144 is a dozen dozen, also known as a gross. I like it because it’s got so damn many factors, it can be divided in all kinds of ways. I think we should switch to the dozenal (base 12) system, because it would make multiplication and division easier.
Base 12 is nice. It feels managably small (while remaining a super highly composite number. The next super highly composite number (which I also like) is 60.
2520 is the first number divisible by 1-10, but that’s a bit much.
How do you feel about hours/minutes/days, degrees(for measuring angles) and pre-decimilozation currency?
Pentadozenal (sextadecimal) time is very cool and sexy, same with angles. But I have no patience for nickels and shillings, that stuff is bullshit.
We should standardise measurements to the dozenal metric system. A mometer should be a dozen dozen dozen meters (1000 meters in dozenal).
A circle should have 260 degrees. That’s two gross and six dozen, pronounced as two-gro six-do.
Your views have merit and it’s a shame that they will remain largely untested amongst the greater populace for repercussions unknowable perhaps forevermore.
I can’t tell you my favourite number. It’s illegal.
Oh, that’s interesting, I appreciate that. Strangely, I’ve heard of illegal primes before somewhere, but not illegal numbers as a whole. Thanks!
In 1942 England was dealing with bombings from Germany. Not yet rockets, these were bombs dropped by plane. So eventually he British took one of the destroyed fields, and propped up an entire city made exclusively out of wood. Wooden buildings. Wooden people. Wooden cars. Ect. Build fast, painted fast. Goes up over the coarse of 2 days.
So when the Germans (nazis) returned a week later to take surveilence of where they need to bomb on their next run, they see this whole town that they didn’t even know about on their maps. They decided to bomb it.
I forget what message Britain sent over the telegraph the next day, but it was something sarcastic.
Then, 2 years later, Germany tried to pull the same stunt in Holland. They wanted the allies to bomb this air strip they just installed. Except it too was all wood, and fake. So when the Allies learned of this new air strip, they sent a bombing crew of 19 bombers. They flew overhead, and only 1 plane released it’s payload. It dropped it’s bomb, and then…no explosion. They had dropped a wooden bomb, with the words “wood 4 wood” carved on it.
The allies were saying to the Germans “Bitch, we CREATED this trick! We know exactly what you did, and we aren’t fooled.”
Now, you may wonder why send an entire fleet, if they knew it was fake. The other 18 bombers had real bombs loaded, just in case they needed them. They didn’t. They just released the 1 wooden bomb.
I always thought that was hilarious. That and the ghost army of 1944.
Nice. Appreciate that write-ups, thanks!
He’s miley cyrus’ ex.
Why yes, that is a historical anecdote
My favorite number is i, often substituted in engineering with j. I love how something that seems so esoteric in is core definition actually describes an easily understood physical property of very basic electronic components, that being impedance.
As for colors, I love the chimerical colors.
Oooo, I also love chimerical colours. Especially because I remember them after seeing them and can reproduce them visually in my mind and can picture them anytime I want after I’ve seen them and now reality is weirdly underwhelming because its color pallette is not only limited but boringer than it otherwise could (and perhaps should) actually be.
So, both are imaginary, related to real phenomena. Nice!
I guess so! 😂
I wonder if that says anything about me?
Here hear.
Favorite number is 8520 which is the postcode for a city where I uses to do telephone support. I hated the job but the number is easy to type on a numerical keyboard, so it always made me happy when someone from there called.
I don’t have a favorite color, but I do have a preference for certain palettes.
Historical anecdote. I hope you like trains. The movie Doctor Zhivago was filmed during the Cold War, and since the setting is in Russia, it was impossible for Hollywood to do on location. Most of it was filmed in Spain and Portugal, but not all of the train scenes could be. See, the train track in Russia has a different (smaller) gauge than in Europe, with the exception of Finland who adopted the russian gauge for geographical reasons. Another hurdle though was that nobody had the Russian trains either, so they had to build them from scratch using old construction drawings from before the Cold War, where Finnish factories had produced some trains for Russia. So the Finnish factory rebooted in the mid 1960s to build a train and wagons from the 1900s, just for this movie. You will not find this info on wikipedia, which only mentions the Spanish trains.
Fun fact about wikipedia, a friend of mine attended wikimania. He told me that while there, he learned that many of the volunteers are neurodivergent men, this is why wikipedia contains so much detailed information on birds and trains.
Train subculture goes back generations. It’s a.techmeme from an era where autists were trainmen because they were (amongst) the only ones who could see the repercussions of this new and exciting technological leap.
I was forced to watch this movie no less than 5 times before the age of 12
Thor’s brother duh
Good answer. Not untrue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_number
<3 Ramanujan.
My favorite number is a tie between 2 and 42, my favorite color is red.
More of a factoid than a full anecdote, but did you know that the Australian army once went to war against a bunch of birds and lost?
I did know that, but I like to remember it anyways. Birds are weird. Emus are weirder