Poll: What Type of Number Would You Want to Be? (I think I got it to work this time.)

Quaternion. Maybe 1 + i + j + k.

A specific number: 37.

It’s clearly the funniest number. I have cites.

Well, at least you’re mostly consistent.

I’ve been told that I’m quite prime.

When I saw the thread title, I said to myself “I’ll bet he doesn’t have hyperreal as an option!”.

Huh.

I’d like to be Transcendental and Rational, but there aren’t any numbers that are both transcendental and rational.

So I guess I’d be Imaginary.

42 of course! A real number with made up meaning, so probably irrational.

I don’t associate with any of the other options, so I guess I’ll be an octonion.

Social Security Number here.

Some people have called me a number two.

I’m an order-three Hermitian.

Say it a couple more times and I’ll believe ya.

I chose “real” because reasons:
a. “keeping it real”
b. Common…there are so many (perhaps a larger infinite set than the integers…right?)
c. Yet, unique, as there are so many to choose from
d. I can pick an unfathomable one without it being high-falutin transcendental like pi or e

I did not choose complex because it’s so two-dimensional. Quaternions are definitely cool, but since they indicate attitude or orientation (in common practice) they seem somehow…political? :slight_smile:

I am 13. Which is prime.

That is all.

But do you associate with yourself? (Are octonions power associative? I don’t know.)

They are! That’s only lost when you go to sedenions. But then, they have zero divisors, so whatever.

So x(x^2) = (x^2)x.

The mail reason I posted this is that Ed Zotti informs me that Mathjax is now enabled. The input to the above was $x(x^2)=(x^2)$. And I escaped using backslash dollar.

4

Wow! The input method seems similar to LaTeX.

Is there a term for “number that cannot be finitely expressed in any notation system”? Sort of the next step beyond “irrational” and “transcendental”. Because the vast majority of real numbers fall into that category.

Yes. Mathjax is essentially a subset of LaTeX. I’m not sure how far it goes. Simple equations for sure. Probably I can find more from Google.

This seems intuitively obvious. In what way should an amateur begin development of a formal proof of this statement?

Note that I am not seeking a cite to a formal proof. I’m sure one is out there somewhere. I am just wondering how an amateur mathematician might approach this.