Ever since I was a young kid, I have had a fascination with numbers. Yes, numbers and mathematics were a thing that long ago! My dad was a bit of a numbers guy and he saw an ability early on, which he fostered. We would be riding in the car and out of nowhere he would ask me a math problem like “What’s 14 times 15”. “210” I would go back with. “Good” would be his reply. Eventually the questions got harder, and I’m not 100% sure if he would know the answers, but there it was “Good”. This is a skill I identified in my son and still stoke in him to this day. Being able to work with numbers to me is much like a painter working their canvas and paint. I enjoy making sense out of rows and columns of numbers. I like looking for patterns and the flow of things. Maybe it’s an attempt to bring order to things. Maybe it’s a bit of OCD. Either way, numbers have served me well. For instance, I always get to figure out the tip and what everyone owes when we’re out to dinner, which friends and family appreciate…just kidding, this only happens sometimes. That being said, numbers fit in well with the Finance Departments “Born to Inform” slogan.
So, I did some research for interesting facts about numbers. Here goes:
1. With NASA just landing their 5th rover on Mars a few weeks ago, can you imagine how many mathematical equations must have been accurately worked out to send an unmanned spacecraft nearly 293 million miles over 7 months? Has to be thousands. And if one goes wrong…?
2. Zero is the only number that can’t be represented in Roman numerals.
3. There is only one number spelled with the same number of letters as itself. Anyone know what it is?
4. We just passed Pi day on 3/14. Pi is 3.14159265359….
5. 9 is considered a magical number. If you multiply a number by 9, and add the digits of the new number together, it will always add up to 9.
8 x 9 = 72 7+2=9
4 x 9 = 36 3+6=9
6. 7 is the most popular favorite number. What’s yours?
7. The largest number is a Googolplex. Here’s some perspective of how big it is:
-a Googol is 1 with one hundred zeros after it
-a Googolplex is a one with a Googol of zeroes behind it. (take your time thinking about that)
-if you were to write this # out and print it in a volume of books, it would weigh more than the
entire planet!
8. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
There are obviously so many more interesting facts about numbers out there. If you come across an interesting one, let me know. My kids need some additional work to do.
By: Rich Pantano, VP of Finance