#MTBoSBlaugust Friday Fun Favorite Numbers

This is a repost ... I still love thinking about favorite numbers, unusual numbers, and such!

I wrote about this idea a couple of years ago ... about exploring students' favorite number ... and why.  Surprisingly there is a research project with more than 30,000 results.  The favorite number among those 30,000 is .... seven!

Of course, Sheldon, of Big Bang Theory episodes, would disagree ... and say the rest of the world is wrong!  His favorite number is ... 73!




Then I ran across this visual in Twitter.  It adds interest to our favorite number exploration!

And then just one more ...1729 ... known as a "taxi-cab" number ... the smallest number that is representable in two ways as a sum of two cubes.  The number derives its name from the following story G. H. Hardy told about Ramanujan. "Once, in the taxi from London, Hardy noticed its number, 1729. He must have thought about it a little because he entered the room where Ramanujan lay in bed and, with scarcely a hello, blurted out his disappointment with it. It was, he declared, 'rather a dull number,' adding that he hoped that wasn't a bad omen. 'No, Hardy,' said Ramanujan, 'it is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two [positive] cubes in two different ways' " http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hardy-RamanujanNumber.html

I saw online that one teacher turned "my favorite number" into a class project.  The requirements are good late elementary, early middle school math concepts.  I wonder how it might also be tweaked to be a good algebra mini-project?!?

Do you have a favorite number??