number fact

stars tell you

·  The numerical digits we use today such as 1, 2 and 3 are based on the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed over 1000 years ago.

·  Different names for the number 0 include zero, nought, naught, nil, zilch and zip.

·  The smallest ten prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23 and 29.

·  2 and 5 are the only prime numbers that end with a 2 or a 5.

·  The golden ratio of approximately 1.618 between two quantities such as lengths often appears in nature (tree branching, uncurling ferns, pine cone arrangements etc) and has been used throughout history to create aesthetically pleasing designs and art works such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

·  Fibonacci numbers are named after Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa (better known as Fibonacci) who introduced them to Western Europe after they had earlier been described by Indian mathematicians. They are related to the golden ratio and proceed in the following order: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, .... Can you see the pattern?

·  The number Pi (the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle) can’t be expressed as a fraction, making it an irrational number. It never repeats and never ends when written as a decimal.

·  Here is Pi written to 100 decimal places:
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751
058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679

·  What comes after a million, billion and trillion? A quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion and undecillion.

·  The name of the popular search engine ‘Google’ came from a misspelling of the word ‘googol’, which is a very large number (the number one followed by one hundred zeros to be exact).

·  A ‘googolplex’ is the number 1 followed by a googol zeros, a number so ridiculously big that it can’t be written because there literally isn't enough room in the entire universe to fit it in!

·  Check out some more big numbers.

·  You might have heard the word ‘infinity’ before or seen its symbol that looks like the number 8 placed on its side. Infinity means a limitless quantity or something that goes on forever. While it’s not really a number like 1, 2 or 3, infinity is often used in math as part of equations and formulas.

·  111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

·  12 + 3 - 4 + 5 + 67 + 8 + 9 = 100

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