Wells' Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers

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CRGreathouse
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Wells' "Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers"

Does anyone have a copy of Wells' "Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers" 1986 or 1987 edition? I'm curious about how they compare to the revised (1997) version I have.

On a lark, I decided to put together a list of "uninteresting" numbers. I started when I realized I'd seen a number of web pages devoted to the opposite, as well as the book mentioned above. My idea was simple: list whole numbers that did not appear on any of the lists I had, starting from the smallest. In the revised edition, this starts 54, 57, 58, 67, 75, 78, 80, 82, 83, 92, ... How does this compare to the original? o:)
 
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CRGreathouse said:
Does anyone have a copy of Wells' "Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers" 1986 or 1987 edition? I'm curious about how they compare to the revised (1997) version I have.
Actually, the 1986,1987 and 1997 editions are not very interesting. Try Try the 2020.172i edition.

:biggrin:
 


CRGreathouse said:
Does anyone have a copy of Wells' "Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers" 1986 or 1987 edition? I'm curious about how they compare to the revised (1997) version I have.

On a lark, I decided to put together a list of "uninteresting" numbers. I started when I realized I'd seen a number of web pages devoted to the opposite, as well as the book mentioned above. My idea was simple: list whole numbers that did not appear on any of the lists I had, starting from the smallest. In the revised edition, this starts 54, 57, 58, 67, 75, 78, 80, 82, 83, 92, ... How does this compare to the original? o:)

Resurecting an old post...

The original has the following 'boring numbers'
43, 51, 54, 57 (although 57.296…° 1 rad does appear), 58, 62, 67, 68, 74, 75, 78, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 92, 93, 95, 106, 107, 109, 110, …

Edited to add: Well... I should of looked at your link first, clearly you have found a copy of the first edition in this time. Also I missed '39' which is simultaneously interesting and un-interesting.
An engineers should have paid more attention to detail!
 


How did nobody post anything about the old joke that you can't list the first uninteresting number?
 


Office_Shredder said:
How did nobody post anything about the old joke that you can't list the first uninteresting number?

:smile:
 


Office_Shredder said:
How did nobody post anything about the old joke that you can't list the first uninteresting number?

Actually, IS that a sound proof?
 


Animastryfe said:
Actually, IS that a sound proof?

I don't think it is legal to create the set of interesting positive integers. It is sort of a variation of russels paradox. I think, but I am not sure, that it breaks with a certain principle/axiom in set theory.

It breaks down when you request a list of uninteresting numbers. That itself affects the status of 'being interesting' for each integer (since the least one is interesting), so also a common-sense view of the situation makes it difficult to justify such a request.

Arguably, we could all accept that being interesting is not a well-defined property of integers.
 


Boring_Nos said:
Resurecting an old post...

The original has the following 'boring numbers'
43, 51, 54, 57 (although 57.296…° 1 rad does appear), 58, 62, 67, 68, 74, 75, 78, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 92, 93, 95, 106, 107, 109, 110, …

Thank you!

Boring_Nos said:
Well... I should of looked at your link first, clearly you have found a copy of the first edition in this time. Also I missed '39' which is simultaneously interesting and un-interesting.
An engineers should have paid more attention to detail!

I was only able to find an excerpt, so the list is new to me.
 


Jarle said:
It is sort of a variation of russels paradox. I think, but I am not sure, that it breaks with a certain principle/axiom in set theory.
Annnnnnd of course, there's an http://xkcd.com/468/" about that...
 
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