What's your favourite number?
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Topic: What's your favourite number?
Posted By: laplace
Subject: What's your favourite number?
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 20:39
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The real question: what do you get out of polls here? Surely they're a device to prompt discussion, because they're no fun on their own... EXPLAIN THIS TO ME. ;P ------------- FREEDOM OF SPEECH GO TO HELL |
Replies:
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 20:54
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Do you mean number as a mathematical object or should I also think of
the sign for that number? Either way, it's impossible for me to choose,
so I vote for other (don't explain), despite the fact that I just kind of explained. To answer your real question, some polls are fun on their own, this one isn't. 
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Posted By: progadicto
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 21:01
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One is the loneliest number
That you'll ever do Two can be as bad as one It's the loneliest number since the number one (One - Aimee Mann) ------------- ... E N E L B U N K E R... |
Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 21:10
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^ That is actually a Three Dog Night song.
3 is a pretty good band, and was Dale Earnhardt's number, so it is a pretty decent number. ------------- 
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Posted By: rileydog22
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 21:16
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The imaginary unit, i, equal to the square root of negative one, is most definitely my favorite number.
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Posted By: JayDee
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 21:30
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25 or Six to 4. ------------- 
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Posted By: ClemofNazareth
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 21:35
^ That is actually a Harry Nilsson song that Three Dog Night made famous.  ------------- "Peace is the only battle worth waging." Albert Camus |
rushfan4 wrote:Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 21:35
| "numbers add up to nuthin..." |
Posted By: laplace
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 21:36
it doesn't have to be a number - it could equally be an amount or a digit ------------- FREEDOM OF SPEECH GO TO HELL |
Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 22:24
I probably knew that at one point in my life, but the memory did fail me. Thanks for the correction. -------------
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Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: March 19 2008 at 22:25
| Other |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 07:29
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Where's pi?
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: Petrovsk Mizinski
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 07:32
Or the price of a pie? Can we get a pie for approximately $3.14? ------------- 
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Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 08:02
Of course not! $3.99 or $3.88, which probably is one of the things that explains why there is something fundamentally wrong with the universe. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 08:03
I think you need to refer to my poll on this or that. You will find all the answers you seek. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 18:12
How could it be an amount? Is it really possible to have a favourite amount? Let's pretend for a while that my favourite amount is five. This means that I very much enjoy seeing and imagining groups of five objects. Groups of five objects have a mysteriously uplifting effect on me, while groups of four or six objects don't. I can test this by thinking of lemonade bottles. First I have in my mind an image of a solitary lemonade bottle. Needless to say it needs a friend. So I add one lemonade bottle in the image. Two bottles feels kind of disturbing, so I add a third one. Three bottles is nice, but the image still doesn't impress me much. Four bottles is almost worse than two. But five! Imagining five lemonade bottles is an unexplainably stunning experience. I can repeat the same experiment with apples and come to the conclusion that my favourite amount is five. So my favourite amount is five. One might think that it pleases me to see a group of five objects, no matter what the objects are. But this is clearly not the case. What if I tried to imagine five South Park characters? There's Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan, and some fifth guy. It could be Chef. It could be Mr Garrison. Whoever it is, I think it's clear that he (or she) is a bit of an outsider. If I had an image of the four main characters + some random guy, I think it's obvious that I'd like to get rid of the fifth character and have a more perfect image with just four characters. Should this mean that my favourite amount is four? No! Remember what happened with the lemonade bottles and the apples! My favourite amount could be five or four, depending on the objects related to that amount. Does this necessarily mean that I don't have a favourite amount per se? Perhaps not. I could say that in most cases I enjoy groups of five objects, so my favourite amount is five. Maybe I've imagined several groups of objects and come to think that almost every time five objects is the perfect amount. But shouldn't I also take into account all the types of objects I haven't thought of? If I consider all the objects I know, if I make a list of them and notice that five is my favourite amount in almost all of the cases, I could say that my favourite amount is five. But what if someone asks me: "Have you thought of monocles? Have you thought of Antikythera machines?" I would have to reply that in those cases my favourite amount is one, not five. If offered enough examples I would have to say that my favourite amount is in fact one, not five. Now, should I say that my favourite amount has changed, or that my favourite amount has been one all along, that it was a mistake of me to think it was five? If I do have a favourite amount that remains the same through all my life, wouldn't I have to think of all possible objects to know for sure what this favourite amount is? Since this is clearly impossible I'm forced to conclude that either I don't have a favourite amount at all, or that I do have a favourite amount, but it's impossible for me to know what it is. |
Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 18:16
agree |
Posted By: progaeopteryx
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 18:42
| It all boils down to numbers and little teeny-weeny particles I can't see, but somehow I sense their presence. |
Posted By: VanderGraafKommandöh
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 18:47
Have you been reading Yvengeny Zamyatin's We, perchance? He's always go on about the square route of minus 1. As I'm not a mathematician and I have no clue what that equations means... the whole part of that story was lost on me. Would you be so kind and explain it to me? -------------   
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Posted By: VanderGraafKommandöh
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 18:48
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My favourite number is 56.
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Posted By: rileydog22
Date Posted: March 20 2008 at 18:54
I've never even heard of Yvengeny Zamyatin. i is simply the square root of negative one, there isn't that much else to explain. It shows up a lot in advanced math (starting around Algebra II) as the roots to equations like X^2+1=0. i is used to define the imaginary numbers (defined as a number times i) and the complex numbers (defined as the sum of an imaginary number and a real number). Imaginary and complex numbers seem useless in practical applications of math, but they actually come up surprisingly often in physics. ------------- |
Posted By: progaeopteryx
Date Posted: March 25 2008 at 18:29
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Googolplex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex |
Posted By: Tuzvihar
Date Posted: March 25 2008 at 18:37
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175113
------------- "Music is much like f**king, but some composers can't climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent." Charles Bukowski |
Posted By: Petrovsk Mizinski
Date Posted: March 30 2008 at 00:44
I like it  -------------
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Posted By: Shakespeare
Date Posted: March 30 2008 at 20:47
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Numbers are like my children. I love them all. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 31 2008 at 07:39
Still not believing I'm the only one who voted for eleventy so far.
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: daz2112
Date Posted: March 31 2008 at 13:20
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13 ------------- In the constellation of cygnus,There lurks a mysterious force...The black hole |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: April 25 2008 at 18:41
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Red, no blue, arrrgh!
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: T.Rox
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 22:46
"We Are the 801"  ------------- "Without prog, life would be a mistake." ...with apologies to Friedrich Nietzsche |
Posted By: T.Rox
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 22:48
...or maybe "one after 909"  ------------- "Without prog, life would be a mistake." ...with apologies to Friedrich Nietzsche |
Posted By: Pnoom!
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 22:55
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My favorite number is e^i(pi) |
Posted By: rileydog22
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 22:56
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ZOMG! That's the square of my favorite number! ------------- |
Posted By: spookytooth
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 22:56
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googolplex is the best number in the universe, there's no doubt about it...
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Would you like some Bailey's? |
Posted By: laplace
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 22:58
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my favourite number is Einstuerzende Neubauten 4 life *giggles*
hey this thread is mine wow I used to be mean :( ------------- FREEDOM OF SPEECH GO TO HELL |
Posted By: KoS
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 23:00
The Number of the Beast. |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 23:03
 ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Pnoom!
Date Posted: April 26 2008 at 23:04
616? |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: April 27 2008 at 05:21
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2112?
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: markosherrera
Date Posted: June 19 2008 at 22:51
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1,610
------------- Hi progmaniacs of all the world |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: October 16 2008 at 16:14
| I kind of like 23. (As a number, not necessarily as an amount. (See page 1.)) |
Posted By: MovingPictures07
Date Posted: October 16 2008 at 16:15
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Other. 13 is my favorite number.  ------------- 
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Posted By: aapatsos
Date Posted: October 17 2008 at 20:15
| 7 deadly sins, 7 ways to win ,7 holy paths to hell and your trip begins... |
Posted By: Petrovsk Mizinski
Date Posted: October 18 2008 at 07:49
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UVER
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Posted By: horsewithteeth11
Date Posted: October 18 2008 at 18:36
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Other. Where the hell is infinity +1?  ------------- 
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Posted By: MovingPictures07
Date Posted: October 18 2008 at 20:32
It doesn't exist! -------------
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Posted By: splyu
Date Posted: October 18 2008 at 20:47
| -0 |
Posted By: horsewithteeth11
Date Posted: October 18 2008 at 21:01
Not in this head. -------------
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Posted By: MovingPictures07
Date Posted: October 18 2008 at 21:02
You're carrying around a head?  -------------
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