The fax numbers of the beast, and other mathematical sports

hwd 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Strange. In the article A138563 is described as a sequence of prime numbers that contain the substring 667. But these are obviously not prime numbers. Having a look at https://oeis.org/A138563 reveals that these are simply any numbers containing the substring.

	▲	tomtomtom777 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well, they do mention they are looking up whether it exists during the interview, so it's a forgivable mistake.

▲

bombcar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

https://oeis.org/ is the page, interestingly enough https://oeis.org/A000001 is not the "positive integers" - that's https://oeis.org/A000027

▲

onionisafruit 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t know anybody who would both appreciate the fax number of the beast joke and not turn it into a conversation about 617 being the real fax number of the beast according to most manuscripts.

	▲	toast0 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, but using 616 is problematic because it ruins the Barney is the antichrist bit [1], and we wouldn't want to associate NANPA area code 616 with both the beast and Grand Rapids, MI (historically, 616 covered more of western MI) [1] https://www.christadelphianbooks.org/agora/bible_books/jff01...

▲

crtasm 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As it doesn't seem to be linked, here is Hofstadter Q-sequence https://oeis.org/A005185

I can't tell which of Chai Wah Wu's submissions the interviewer was referring to. https://oeis.org/search?q=Chai%20Wah%20Wu&fmt=short&sort=cre...

	▲	bazzargh 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think maybe https://oeis.org/A263499 You can shorten the candidates list quite a bit: https://oeis.org/search?q=author%3A%22Chai+Wah+Wu%22+2015+Pr... The article says "Spring 2015" but in fact the magazine was published December 29, 2015. In the text it mentions https://oeis.org/history?seq=A250001 so the interview could not have been earlier than October 2015; Wu's sequence is "recent". There's a few sequences that jump out, this one, and the prime palindromes of 0's and 1s whose squares are palindromes; but that was August and seems too early.

▲

fix4fun 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

667 - “fax number of the beast” - that was funny ;) The thing about mathematics is that it can tickle your brain - in a creative way.

It's becoming increasingly difficult these days, with so many things competing for your attention and "brain-deadening" you. It was a wonderful thing to be bored and play around with math. My favorite moments were the epiphany - that there is some hidden connection between math areas or something got new meaning.

	▲	NoSalt 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I had a similar epiphany in college, somewhere amongst Calc I, II, III, DiffEq, physics, and engineering. I kept meaning to pursue it, but life got in the way and I never did. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember what that epiphany was, and I am sad.