Tag Archives: numbers

Nature by Numbers

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Brent

This has been making the rounds of the math blogosphere (blathosphere?), but in case you haven’t seen it yet, check out Cristóbal Vila’s awesome short video, Nature by Numbers. Especially appropriate given that I have been writing about Fibonacci numbers … Continue reading →

Posted in fibonacci, golden ratio, links, video | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Computing with decadic numbers

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Brent

[This is the ninth, and, I think, final in a series of posts on the decadic numbers (previous posts: A curiosity, An invitation to a funny number system, What does "close to" mean?, The decadic metric, Infinite decadic numbers, More … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, programming | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Infinite decadic numbers

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Brent

To recap: we’ve now defined the decadic metric on integers by where is not divisible by 10, and also . According to this metric, two numbers are close when their difference is decadically small. So, for example, and are at … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, convergence, infinity, number theory | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

The decadic metric

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Brent

Continuing my series of posts exploring the decadic numbers… in my previous post, I explained that we will define a new “size function”, or metric, different from the usual “absolute value”, and written . Two numbers will be “close to” … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, number theory, pattern | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

An invitation to a funny number system

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Brent

Consider the equation Solving this equation is no sweat, right? Let’s do it. First, we subtract from both sides: Now we can factor an out of the left side: Now, if the product of two things is zero, one of … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, number theory | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Triangunit divisors

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Brent

Here’s a neat problem from Patrick Vennebush of Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks: Append the digit 1 to the end of every triangular number. For instance, from 3 you’d get 31, and from 666 you’d get 6,661. Now take a … Continue reading →

Posted in number theory, pattern, puzzles | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Book Review: The Mystery of the Prime Numbers

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Brent

Several months ago, Matthew Watkins sent me a review copy of his new book, Secrets of Creation Volume One: The Mystery of the Prime Numbers. It’s taken me a while to get around to reviewing it, but not for lack … Continue reading →

Posted in books, number theory, primes, review | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Book reviews: Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks and Easy as Pi

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Brent

Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks A few months ago, Patrick Vennebush was kind enough to send me a review copy of his new book, Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks. It’s a treasure-trove of math-related jokes with a huge range of … Continue reading →

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