Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with numbers

How to make a theme from all of these numbers?

Kimothy — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:41:27 -0800

My nephews have some numerically coincidental birthdays coming up, anyone have any clever ideas that we can use for the occasion? My sister has given me the task of coming up with a clever way of emphasizing the numbers involved with her sons' birthdays.

-One will be 5 on 11-3-08
-The other will be 3 on 11-5-08
-To further the number madness, their party is going to be held on 11-08-08.

My sister wants me to come up with a theme or invitation design - or both. The only specific instruction was that she wanted it make a point of the once in a life-time coincidence of all of the numbers involved.

Bonus info - the boys are very much into Thomas the Tank Engine and Disney's Cars, which they refer to only as "Lightening McQueen."

Mathematical hive mind, Help me be more clever than I am!

Who are you going to call?

woolylambkin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:28:30 -0800

My phone book was recently lost and I'm looking for numbers to populate my new one. I'm getting family and friends but now I'm looking for generally useful phone numbers. Think along the lines of your favorite carry-out place, a cab service, or any number you have that isn't connected to a person you personally know.

Maybe dyscalculia, maybe badly wired neurons

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:17:29 -0800

Does anyone have experience with self-treatment as an adult with dyscalculia? I think I may have it, and that I've had it all my life. Whether or not that's so, are there any tricks to "rewiring" yourself? Like many bookish types, I could never handle math. I wanted to like it, since it made so much sense, but the numbers just never would do what the teacher could make them do. The teachers went on about how smart I was, how well I could do if I really wanted to, and how I "just wasn't trying." Eventually, they were right about that.

Now I realize that I have an awful problem with switching numbers around. Tell me to remember that a house is at 9834 Green Street; I will say to myself, "Right -- 9843 Green Street." This must be why the concepts of math seemed so clear to me, but my grades were terrible. Also, I have difficulty visualizing numerals that a person is reciting, while their words instantly appear in my head.

So I check, and check, and do my very best to compensate for myself. You can imagine the kind of trouble this issue would allow a person to get into. Is proofreading all I can do? It's beginning to embarrass me deeply and personally. Have any of you addressed this issue as an adult?

Can a number be funny?

sourwookie — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:56:48 -0800

I have a show tomorrow night, I know nothing about sports, and I need to mod a hoodie. Help with funny/edgy names and numbers. So I'm playing with a band tomorrow night and it was decided our dress theme would be any shirt, jersey or jacket with athletic style, including numbers and maybe player names.

So my plan is to pick up a hoodie, and use iron on lettering to put a number and maybe a name on there, but I would like it to be a joke of some sort.

69 is so obvious it's lame, and 42, while a little better, is also too obvious.

Anyone got any name/number combinations to get me going.

What is that building with the giant light up numbers?

activitystory — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:36:54 -0800

What is that building on Water Street at John street in downtown NYC (you can see it on street view on googlemaps)? What are those numbers for? Is it a clock or counter or something?

Putting the page numbers exactly where they ought to be?

.kobayashi. — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:18:44 -0800

Can you help me figure out Microsoft Word 2007's settings to meet some very precise requirements for page number formatting? For my dissertation, I need to reformat my page numbers so the top of the number is exactly one inch from the top edge of the page, and the right edge of the number is exactly one inch from the right edge of the page. After that, there should be a double space separating the page number from the text.

I've been futzing around for a while with the headers. But I'm clearly overmatched here. Can anyone either give me a step by step through this, or point me to some clearer online instructions than the ones I've seen so far? Thanks so much!

(And yes, I know, I know, Word has lots of problems, but switching programs is a non-starter right now.)

How to best manage a physical mailing list?

LongDrive — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:15:34 -0800

How to manage an unwieldy mailing list (for physical mailing) on a Mac. I use an opt-in mailing list that I use to send out promotional mailings from my business. This is a physical mailing list that I print labels from through Indesign. I have been maintaining these databases using the new Numbers software from Apple (because my both myself and my lovely Mac do not get along with Excel).

Every few weeks I am sent an updated master list that has new contacts added, and deletes out of date ones.

I am looking for some solution that can compare my local edited copy with the new master copy, and update my local copy as required.

Something mentioned in this thread would be useful, but I am not collaborating with another person per se, rather being provided an updated list every few weeks by a third party. (fyi, this is not spam)

If budget allowed, I would love to hire a Filemaker or Excel guru to build a custom thing for me, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any alternative software for Mac that could possibly perform this function or simply better manage this list?

What is bigger than alot or a shitload?

JohnnyGunn — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:14:08 -0800

My son asked me how many trees there are in the world. I know there are a finite number, yet I also know that it is not practical to count them. Same with grains of sand. When the set cannot be measured because it goes on forever we say the set is infinite. Is there a single word to express the concept of a countable, finite number too large to actually count? I was able to convey the thought that the number of trees is a definite number unlike the concept of infinity (which I understand in theory there is no infinite number because you could always add 1). I think he understands the concept as I dumped out a cup of sugar on the counter and asked him to count them. He saw right away that there were clearly a definite number, but for this purpose too many to count. (Smart boy that he is, he licked his finger, put it in the sugar and ate it pronouncing, "there are now less grains of sugar Dad!"

Knowing that there is a term like google to express a certain large number, he asked "what do we call it when there is a number that stops really large, but it is too big to count."

I googled "too large to count" and got a few good definitions of infinity and the concept of large finite sets, but no one word to describe it. Does the word exist? (Not looking for a phrase such as "uncountable finite number") If no one word exists, any suggestions for a word my family can use? Shitload came to mind, but I think it could be argued that shitload is a countable number.

Recommend me a good contact manager for phone numbers and names?

jacobean — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:41:56 -0800

I'm looking for a "lite" contact manager for my PC? I am tired of losing scraps of paper with temporary phone numbers on them...I do not want to enter them into my Outlook contacts manager. Is there any no "bells and whistles" application out there that I can quickly tap in the details into my PC? Even better would be an application that syncs with a Palm device?

Finding the magnitude of complex fractions

toomanyplugs — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:18:38 -0800

Finding the magnitude of a complex fraction. Is it simply |num|/|denom|? Or is there more to it? Say I have a complex fraction (a+bi)/(c+di). If I need to find the magnitude of the entire fraction, can I simply take the magnitude of the numerator over the magnitude of the denominator? ie,

sqrt(a^2 + b^2) / sqrt(c^2 + d^2)

I've tried solving this in MathCAD, but the answer it gives is much more complicated than this, and I can't figure out how to work its logic through. The book I'm using doesn't go into how to solve this type of problem with the numerator != 1.

If it matters, the actual problem I'm solving (for a control systems class) is

|(iw+5)/(iw+2)(iw+4)|

but I'd prefer a method to just the solution.

I have access to MATLAB 2007a and MathCAD 13

Yes, this is homework help, but it's not homework answers. I need help in finding the analytical method

House numbers

dydecker — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 05:57:13 -0800

Why are house numbers in America so long? I've always wondered this. If you live at '10112 Main Street' or '1015 Lincoln Avenue' do you have thousands of houses on your street? What's up with that?

The Old Testament God != The New Testament God?

WCityMike — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:38:41 -0800

I'm working my way through the Bible. At the moment, I'm towards the end of Numbers. The past few books have been very heavy with detailed instructions on the various blood rituals God requires of his people — which animals to sacrifice, what manner to do it in, and lots of blood-splashing on the sides of the tent. I asked a Christian friend of mine about this, because, basically, I was wondering why these various intricacies of blood rituals weren't brought along through the history of Christianity. Catholicism doesn't require that pigeons or bulls be sacrificed in a certain way to appease the Lord, and, as far as I know, I don't believe it really ever did. I found her response rather fascinating: she said, "That's not Christianity." She then went on to explain that Christ changed much of the edicts that were laid down in the Old Testament, as sort of a reinvention of the religion. I'm wondering if people could elucidate on this. Is this a unique theological theory, or is this common Christian doctrine? If the latter, what prevents that from being applied to Old Testament dogma that is considered central to Christianity (I'm thinking specifically of the Ten Commandments)? If it's just a theory, then what are the more conservative, Bible-is-quite-literal Christian denominations' response to the question of the inconsistency of why these blood rituals (splashing blood around the tent; if x happens burn two pigeons on the altar; if y happens sacrifice a bull; being stoned to death for certain infractions; etc.) can be ignored but everything else is to be taken literally — since they believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible? How does the everything-literally-happened variant of Christianity resolve the "two Gods" issue of the OT and NT being very different in their very essences?

In search of free online tool for creating radial graphs!

cortex — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:47:20 -0800

Are there any free online tools for generating radar (aka radial, spider, star) graphs/charts? The ideal tool would be easy to use dynamically and/or against large sets of data to generate multiple graphs.

I know that Google Documents, for example, provides a lot of graph/chart options, but not this specific sort. On the other end, I'm solid with perl and aware of e.g. radial.pm, but I'd love to find a slick, existing start-to-finish tool rather than having to roll some or all of it myself.

Any ideas?

Why do I hate 8?

lalex — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:51:24 -0800

Why is it hard for me to perform simple mental calculations with certain numbers? I've always had a problem performing mental multiplication with the numbers 8 and 6, to the point that I have a visceral reaction to those numbers - I just don't like them. I'm not talking complicated calculations here, just your basic simple single-digit, multiplication table stuff (i.e. "8 times 7" or "6 times 4"). I like math and never had any problems with college-level algebra, calculus, etc., so I can't figure out why it takes me substantially more time to perform exceedingly simple mental calculations involving 6 and 8.

Is this a common thing...do most people have inexplicable difficulty using certain numbers? Is there a name for this type of minor mental "blip" or deficiency?

How to phone uk 0800 numbers from overseas?

spiff101 — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:12:59 -0800

Is there any way to call United Kingdom 0800 (freephone) numbers from overseas? Is there any way to call United Kingdom 0800 (freephone) numbers from overseas? - or to find out if the company in question has a non-0800 number registered?

Number of U.S. Sports Enthusiasts

wavejumper — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:50:44 -0800

How would I locate the U.S. "market" numbers on people could consider themselves sports enthusiasts - i.e., "how many swimmers are there"? How many backpackers? How many triatheletes? How many kayakers? I know someone has done this research. I'm looking for Adventure sports in particular.

The Various Workings of a Cube-Shaped Gallery

0bvious — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:14:20 -0800

Imagine a cube-shaped building, with ten cube-shaped rooms along each side (10 rooms long, 10 high & 10 deep). Each cubular room has 4 walls, 1 ceiling and 1 floor. Each of the 6 interior surfaces in all 1000 cubular rooms is decorated with a different piece of art. The rooms can be moved around the building, as if it were an enormous Rubik's cube, but they can also be spun on their axes, so all 6 walls of all 1000 cubes is capable of touching all the others (if the cube is so arranged). How many combinations of art within the 'Cube Gallery' are possible? If you can run me through the workings of the maths I would be extra grateful. Also, what technical words/phrases/language are useful/interesting in expressing this concept? To restipulate the numbers:

- A cube gallery with 10 cube rooms along each side (10x10x10)

- Each cube room has 6 pieces of art on its interior surfaces

- All the cube rooms are capable of being rotated into every possible variation (ceilings becoming walls becoming floors etc.)

Thanks in advance!

Why can't I remember any numbers?

otherwordlyglow — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:46:46 -0800

How do I improve my memory for numbers? I have recently taken a job that involves lots of random statistics, mostly things like total square footages, budgets, cost per foot, rate of return...that sort of thing. I've always been pretty bad at remembering any number (how old am I again?) that doesn't have a contextual relationship to something else. I can remember dates pretty well and have an enormous capacity for seemingly random non-numerical trivia. I just can't remember numbers. I have noticed that if I write something down, as opposed to just hearing it or reading it, I'm sometimes better at remembering the number since I can "see" it in my head as I'm thinking about it.

I've noticed that some people I work with can rattle off any of these types of numbers I've mentioned with what seems like relative ease ("yes, that project was planned for 90,000 square feet and had a total budget then of $2.5 million"). It's not required that I be able to do this but it would sure make me look a lot better if, in the middle of some meeting, when someone asks me "how much did they say the budget was for construction?" I could answer it with something other than "I'll have to get back to you on that."

Is it just innate talent that allows some people to be better at remembering numerical data? Is there any hope that I can get better at it?

Iraq troop prediction numbers

klangklangston — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 14:49:51 -0800

Anyone have predictions (with citations) offered on how many troops would be necessary in Iraq? I've heard that generals said up to 300,000 in the run-up, but I can't seem to find sources for these. Obviously, the more predictions and the more diverse the predictions, the better. Again, citations and sourcing is KEY. (This is not homework, but rather trying to rapidly shore-up some fact-checking that I have to do, plus satisfying my own curiousity).

What is the non-music, touchpad number equivalent of "finger memory"?

easternblot — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 13:02:44 -0800

I just logged into a university library account by typing a 10 digit number. I have no clue what the number actually is, but I know exactly what to punch in. Similarly, I don't really know my pin code, I only know the shape it makes when I type it in, and the same goes for photocopy codes and frequently dialled phone numbers. What's this called? In music it's referred to as "finger memory", but this seems to be music specific. My guess was "kinetic memory", but that seems to be something else entirely.

1 is more common than 2?

wogbat — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:00:30 -0800

1 is more common than 2? Help me find a recent article that talks about "data" having a tendency to start with 1. I recently (last ten days) saw an article from a study that said that numbers that begin with 1 such as 12,000, 112,322, 1,022, were much more common in "data" than similar numbers that started with 9, for example. They went on to say that accountants (or the IRS maybe?) use this to determine whether false data follows the same pattern. Basically the point was that in real-world data we would think that 123 would be as common as 923, but in fact numbers that begin with 1 are more common. It doesn't make sense to me now, so I wanna re-read it.

My google fu isn't working because I want to search on "numbers" "1" "9" "accountant" "distribution". I read digg, reddit, lifehacker, mefi, and slashdot and it is likely it came from one of those.

Note numbers on a staff

scazza — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 07:22:24 -0800

I'm trying to find an image of note numbers with the corresponding notes on a staff. I should be able to find this. This is a common image. It's all over my ENT's office. I can find an image of all the MIDI frequencies, with the numbers on a keyboard but not on a staff.

Thanks everyone.

What is this even called?

croutonsupafreak — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 07:32:15 -0800

What kind of jobs exist for people who think about numbers and money from a consumer perspective, in a weirdly logical and obsessive way? Some "experiments" I've done lately:

* Took a colleague's kid-oriented, preservative-laden grocery receipt to four different stores, developed a spreadsheet that compared prices at each store so he'd know where to get the best deals. (There was a more than 20 percent difference in prices between the high and the low.)

* Did the same thing with my organic hippy vegetarian grocery receipt.

* On a 70 mph highway commute, drove different speeds for the duration of an entire tank -- 55 mph one week, 60 mph the next, etc. all the way up to 80 mph -- to see what kind of mileage I got at different speeds. (I get nearly 40 miles to the gallon at 55 mph, and less than 30 miles to the gallon at 80 mph.)

* Developed a shopping strategy, by outlining the clothes I need, finding their retail prices, comparing them to online sales prices, and coming up with a meaningful-only-to-me formula that tells me when to buy on ebay and when to hold out for a more meaningful in-store sale.

* Less money oriented: At the gym, I am lifting weights using a very math-oriented periodization schedule I worked out, and I'm training for my first 5 k run using another methodical schedule.

On NPR a few weeks ago, I heard an interview with a woman who collects data for the Consumer Price Index, which we use as a measure of inflation in the US. It sounded awesome, but it's apparently a very part time job and not one that needs filling in my neck of the woods.

I'm generally happy with my career at the moment, but I can't help but wonder what else is out there that I might enjoy.

Are there people who think like I do for a living, and what is it that they're doing?

Finding longest sequence in a set of numbers

maxwelton — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 00:01:48 -0800

I have a question about finding the longest sequence in a set of numbers. I have a database with a column containing numeric (integer) serial numbers. There are lots of gaps, and I'd like to find the longest sequence of sequential numbers in the set.

This possibly laughable bit of PHP code below is how I would approach it. (There is some error checking missing from it in the name of clarity as well as checking "isset()" and other niceties.)

// $query = returned database results
// $tempLow = scratch field for start of current sequence
// $low = final sequential set's start
// $high = final sequential set's end

$low = $query[0];
$high = $query[0];
$tempLow = $query[0];
for ($a=1; $a > count($query); $a++) {
` if ( $query[$a] > $query[$a - 1] + 1 ) {
`` if ( ( $high - $low ) < ( $query[$a - 1] - $tempLow ) ) {
``` $high = $query[$a - 1];
``` $low = $tempLow;
`` }
`` $tempLow = $query[$a];
` }
}

Is there a better way? This obviously only returns the first occurence of the longest sequence if there is more than one sequence of that length, which is OK.

Can ya help me be geeker?

horseblind — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 18:34:12 -0800

Can you help me with my innumeracy? Okay, innumeracy might be a bit of an overstatement. Here's the scoop. I'm very interested in mathematics but due to lack of real-world need I find that I don't know as much as I'd like to know from the world of math. Things I'd like to learn about are Algebra, Calculus, Number Systems, and how to think mathematically in general.

What do I hope to achieve with this new found mathematical thinking? I want to better understand some of the very questions posted here on AskMeFi. I want to read "Godel Escher Bach" with a better understanding and appreciation. I want to be able to increase the speed of the types of problems I can already resolve whther they are on paper or in my head. I want to have more fun with numbers.

I am in my mid-thirties and have had little mathematical need or education since highschool. I have no problems actually figuring things out but am submitting to the MeFi collective to give me a jump start. I currenty have little mathematical need, but this is rather about desire instead.

Please suggest books, websites, puzzlebooks or any other source that may help me better my own mathematical thinking.

The geek in me want to be geeker.