1.5.1 - Introduction to the Number Catalogs
1.5.1
INTRODUCTION
TO THE NUMBER CATALOGS
Welcome to the Number Catalogs. In this chapter I present some special topics related to numbers. Numbers can be put into various groups. For example, some numbers are prime, and some are composite. Some numbers are the results of simple operations and some aren't. In the various articles of this chapters I present lists of numbers with interesting or important properties. For practical reasons, the numbers and topics chosen are very selective.
One important thing to remember about numbers in general is that they are absurdly and unmanagably numerous. Even when we only restrict ourselves to counting numbers within the counting range ( numbers less than ten billion ) there are still way to many numbers to deal with. An exhaustive list of counting numbers within almost any significant range is impractical to impossible. Yet we do not want to restrict ourselves to only the low counting numbers within the limit of a few thousands ( as I have shown, it is certainly possible to list exhaustively the counting numbers up to a 1099, but it only takes a few order of magnitudes (powers of 10) for such a project to become increadibly massive and impratical ). This site is devoted to exploring the counting numbers in terms of scale. In other words, we want to discuss large numbers, but because of the massive number of them we must be selective about which we choose to include as entries.
As we will see later, some numbers are easier to express than others, and in general the entries I include for large numbers are only the "simplest" ones to express. Gaps are inevitable, even at this early stage.
None the less, I try to choose numbers so that they give proper representation to the various number ranges I deal with. The "counting range" is only the first of many number ranges in a system which stretches out to the very limit of human imagination.
Enjoy your visit to the number catalogs...
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