Posts Tagged ‘Numbers’
We’ve got your number…
From the Mathematical Association of America, NumberADay: “Every working day, we post a number and offer a selection of that number’s properties.”
And so they do…
438 = 2 x 3 x 73.
438 is a Smith number because the sum of its digits is equal to the sum of the digits of its prime factors: 4 + 3 + 8 = 2 + 3 + 7 + 3 = 15.
438 is 110110110 in base 2 (binary) and 666 in base 8. It is 3223 in base 5 and 141 in base 19.
The term “438 match” or “438 game” has been used by cricket news media to describe the famous 2006 One Day International in which Australia scored a world record 434 in their innings, only to see South Africa respond in their innings with 438.
And more… which one can find– along with the dope on dozens and dozens of other digits– at NumberADay.
As we resolve to practice on our abaci, we might send elegantly-derived birthday greetings to mathematician Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya; she was born on this date in 1850. The first major Russian female mathematician, she made important contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, was one the first women to edit a scientific journal, and was the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe (Stockholm University). But while (after much lobbying by her admirers) she was granted a Chair in the Russian Academy of Sciences, she was never offered a professorship in Russia.
Amaze your friends and colleagues!…
Need to hammer home an arithmetical point? Dramatize a quantitative comparison? NumberQuotes has the juice. One simply types in the number–any number– to be analogized, hits “return”– and up pops a series of striking similes. For example, if one needs to be clear just how over-the-top excessive $250,000 dollars is (in whatever context), one can choose among:
– $250,000 would buy a Caffe Latte Grande for everyone living in Richardson, Texas
– 250,000 Burger King Whoppers would weigh as much as 9.29 African male elephants
– 250,00 is the number of bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists employed in the US
… and so many more options. Compelling comparisons aren’t just for Ronald Reagan any longer– now anyone can pick a number, any number, and click here.
As we spice up our speech, we might recall that it was on this date in 1930 (the number of theatrical and performance make-up artists working in the U.S…), on the passing of Empress Zewditu, that Haile Selassie (nee, Tafari Makonnen) was proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia. While he was, by virtue of his office, the titular head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Salasse is worshipped as God Incarnate by the Rastafarians (who named their faith by conflating “Ras”– “Head,” equivalent to “Duke”– and Salasse’s pre-Imperial first name, “Tafari”).
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