Facts about numbers that everyone should know

Numbers are everywhere: your age, your house number, date of birth, phone number, time. We use numbers every day without thinking about it. If you stop and think about it, numbers and mathematics are amazing!

2 is the only even prime number! This is because all other even numbers are divisible by 2.

The numbers on the opposite side of a die always add up to 7.

An integer is a positive or negative integer.

There is no Roman numeral for zero.

TO dozen is 12.

TO baker's dozen It's 13!

TO score is 20.

Did you know that the British and Americans have Different systems for naming numbers greater than 1 million.?

The number four is the only number that has the same number of letters as its value!

In the word forty, the letters are arranged alphabetically.

Between 0 and 1000, the only number with an 'a' is one thousand.

All odd numbers contain an 'e'.

How many days are in a year?

Each year has 365 days unless it is a leap year when there are 366.

What number is pi?

To two decimal places, pi is 3.14.

What is a googol?

A googol is 1 followed by 100 zeros or 10¹⁰⁰

What is a Googolplex?

A googolplex is 1 followed by a googol of zeros or 10^googol

What is a jiffy?

A heartbeat is 1/100th of a second!

What comes after a billion?

A quadrillion comes after a billion, followed by:

Quintillion 10¹⁸

Sextillion 10^twenty-one

Septillion 10²⁴

Octillion 10²⁷

Nomillions 10³⁰

Decillion 10³³

Undecillion 10³⁶

Duodecillion 10³⁹

What is an imaginary number?

An imaginary number is a number that squared gives a negative result.

What is the Fibonacci sequence?

The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two previous numbers.

For example:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34

Finding mathematics in nature

Fibonacci numbers are commonly seen in nature. Romanesco Brocolli has flowers that form perfect, repeating spiral patterns called fractals. Each bus is made up of smaller buds also arranged in a spiral. The number of spirals is a Fibonacci number.

Fibonacci numbers are also seen in pine cones, petals, seed heads, shells, and even spiral galaxies.

Last updated on February 8, 2024 by Emma Vanstone