The interesting number paradox is a semi-humorous paradox that arises from attempting to classify natural numbers as "interesting" or "dull". The paradox states that all natural numbers are interesting. The "proof" is by contradiction: if there exists a non-empty set of uninteresting numbers, there would be a smallest uninteresting number – but the smallest uninteresting number is itself interesting because it is the smallest uninteresting number, producing a contradiction.
Read more about Interesting Number Paradox: Proof, Paradoxical Nature
Famous quotes containing the words interesting, number and/or paradox:
“It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Black lady,
what will I do
without your two flowers?
I have inhabited you, number by number.
I have pushed you in and out like a needle.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“A good aphorism is too hard for the teeth of time and is not eaten up by all the centuries, even though it serves as food for every age: hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which—like salt—is always prized, but which never loses its savor as salt does.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)