A couple of days ago a colleague sent me this interesting number, 142857, via email. I performed a Google search on the number and I was surprised to see so many returns - 190,000. It even has its own wiki page. For additional information, here is the wiki page for this cyclic number - 142857.
Below is the email.
Subject: Interesting Numbers
Roy,
I want to let you know a weird number which is 142857.
Why?
142857 X 1 = 142857
142857 X 2 = 285714
142857 X 3 = 428571
142857 X 4 = 571428
142857 X 5 = 714285
142857 X 6 = 857142
See, the answers show all same numbers with different position.
142857 X 7 = 999999
142 + 857 = 999
14 + 28 + 57 = 99
142857 X 142857 = 20408122449
20408 + 122449 = 142857
Interesting, huh?
11 comments:
Really nice numbers. But maths have fascinating things if you search for them.
You're right bogdan, math is very fascinating and pure
1/7 = 0.142857 (repeating)
Which "explains" some of the interesting facets of that number. It's still fascinating that 1/7 would be so cyclical, though.
Cool! interesting stuff!
WOW.. ! very interesting ! this is a magic number !)
Thanks..
i love your blog dont stop blogging
http://www.youtube.com/subscribemonkey
i was going through divisions of 360 and got curious about 360/7=51.(428571)
since dividing 360 by any other number from 1 to 10 besides 7, i started wondering if this could be related to a "higher 'dimensional' oddity"
since string theory uses 10+16 dimensions for ((3+1)+6)+16 i ran a few quick caluclations using base-16 instead of base-10, and lo and behold:
360(DEC)=168(HEX)
168/7=33
22(DEC)=16(HEX)
16/7=3
probably just us humans picking the "wrong" base (10) to describe a reality which is of 10+16=26 dimension
360(DEC)=DM(base-26)
DM/7=1P
disregard my comment, my calculator lied to me when it stated it could to decimals in any base *sigh*
That number sticks out to me. That was the only question that I failed in a technical interview for a job with google. I could not figure out for the life of me why the interviewer asked me that question. It sort of makes sense based on the job that I was going to be doing or perhaps it was the endeavor of a very sick interviewer?
Anyway, your posting did explain things better.
cubefeed
Unix/Linux Systems Administrator Resource
cubefeed,
That's interesting that Google asked you about that particular question during the interview.
At any rate, did you get the job?
No, I didnt get the job. That was the only question in the interview that I didnt answer correctly.
Incidentally, after spreading the word to other sysadmins, I am not the only person to go through this with this same group at google.
I wish someone before me had spread the word. Oh, well....
Cubefeed
Unix/Linux Systems Administrator Resources
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