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Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by joshu on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @01:35PM (#1280052)
I wonder which one is least special.
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by e1ven on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @01:38PM (#1280062)
Wouldn't that then become a self-fulfilling loop? That number's non-specialness would be something special about it, so you'd need the next non-special number, and so on until they were all covered.
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by aquadoctorbob on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @01:55PM (#1280109)
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by mrfish on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @02:58PM (#1280270)
The people who wrote this entry have too much time on their hands. Hey I must have to much time on my hands to make this comment about people having too much time on their hands thus presenting at least a ironic situation and at most a Time Wasting Paradox.
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by pw0ncakes on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @02:48PM (#1280246)
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by pw0ncakes on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @02:49PM (#1280250)
The lowest dominated strategy for the "smallest unique integer" game with 3 players.
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by pohl on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @03:26PM (#1280345)
I noticed most (maybe all) of the links go to wolfram math world. Out of curiosity, I compared a few entries there against Wikipedia, and I like the latter a lot better. My sample size was pretty small, though.
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by fbu on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @03:17PM (#1280320)
9945 = 17!!!!

I can't stop laughing at this one.

Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by DanHulton on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @03:25PM (#1280341)
...why?
Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by aquadoctorbob on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @05:11PM (#1280603)
Well, in writing -- Internet discourse in particular -- multiple exclamation marks are occasionally (ab)used to indicate absurd levels of emotional intensity on the part of the speaker. The factorial operation is also denoted by an exclamation mark; to someone unfamiliar with that fact, or someone capable of intentionally conflating the two usages, it appears that the statement "9945 = 17!!!!" represents someone excitedly asserting a falsehood (i.e. "9945 = 17") or possibly suggesting that shouting a number somehow increases its value.

Each line on the linked article is a more-or-less stoic mathematical fact, and the humor comes from the subversion of this expectation when the entry for 9945 is misinterpreted as I described.

Re:What's special about this number? (0-9999) by mrfish on Tuesday April 20, 2010 @02:59PM (#1280272)
I thought "42" was the meaning of life?