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A comment on The exponential function is a miracle. Parent comment

Re:The exponential function is a miracle by yesbabyyes on Friday September 13, 2019 @02:41AM (#20959764)
It's the first arbitrary number. 4711 is the second arbitrary number. They were used as the numeric foo and bar when I studied programming in high school and college during the 90s. I always thought it was universal hackerdom, but I actually rarely see them referenced. Perhaps it's a European thing?
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Re:The exponential function is a miracle by tus88 on Friday September 13, 2019 @04:22PM (#20966100)
Do you have a source on "arbitrary number"? There were no obvious explanations online.
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Re:The exponential function is a miracle by yesbabyyes on Saturday September 14, 2019 @06:54AM (#20970026)
It's not a mathematical or in any way strict thing. It's just a number chosen to exemplify any number. Just like "foo", "bar", "baz", "qux", etc, a sequence of numbers could be e.g. 17, 42, 4711. I grew up with it, and googling it seems that at least 4711 is a German thing.
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Re:The exponential function is a miracle by perl4ever on Friday September 13, 2019 @08:39PM (#20968089)
I was thinking, what is the smallest number not found in any sequence on https://oeis.org/?
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