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by chris_wot 3794 days ago
Sorry to go off topic here, but can you give an example of a number that isn't interesting?
2 comments

By "interesting" I mean a number that arises out of something else that one might be interested in.

For instance, consider pi. If you are interested in geometry, pi will turn up. If you are interesting in number theory, pi will turn up (e.g., it is connected to zeta functions). If you are interested in probability and statistics, pi will turn up. If you are interested in differential equations, pi will come to the party.

If you somehow have never encountered pi, I can convey it to you by telling you about one of those things. For instance, I could tell you that it is the period of the non-zero solutions of the differential equation y'' + y = 0.

An uninteresting number would be one that has no known connection to other things. If I have a particular uninteresting number, and I want to convey it to you, I'll have to just tell you the number.

A random number would almost certainly be uninteresting, such as this hex fraction, which came from /dev/urandom on my computer: 0.bfdab557104bf2d8952fb1ea0adfd732794a353d5b35d95cda927f4ad8f6dd11f11b2e968298. It is extremely unlikely that anyone has ever seen that number before. The only known thing interesting about it is that it was made specifically as an example of a number that is not otherwise interesting.

Generate some random numbers. They aren't interesting.