Love Numbers?

(I found this old post in my drafts, I guess I never clicked “publish”)

I already tweeted this site, but the more I thought about how beautiful and fun it makes numbers, I wanted to share some more.

Number Gossip is simple, and elegant, and makes it purpose clear:

Enter a number and I’ll tell you everything you wanted to know about it but were afraid to ask.

So since 42 is pretty obvious, I aimed at something more obscure… 41 or http://numbergossip.com/41 (Also I love sites that make URLs like this- you can build apps or link activities pretty easily into it).

So what’s the gossip about 41?

41 is the smallest non-palindromic prime which on subtracting its reverse gives a perfect cube (i.e., 41 – 14 = 3³)

41 is the smallest half-quartan prime: p = (x⁴ + y⁴)/2

41 is the smallest number such that the sum of its divisors equals 3 times its reverse (41 + 1 = 3*14)

Wow, am I going to sound smart now… “non-palindromic prime”, wooot.

And the results beg for digging deeper- I learned what “odious” and “deficient” numbers are.

There is also a great set of links that will make any math teacher’s toes tingle.. maybe

If I was a math teacher, I would be all over this site. It’s great!

Confession: I learned abut this in a dead tree version of Wired.