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:
“How much more interesting an event is that man’s supper who has just been forth in the snow to hunt, nay, you might say, steal, the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat are sweet.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the U.S. for instance, the value of a homemaker’s productive work has been imputed mostly when she was maimed or killed and insurance companies and/or the courts had to calculate the amount to pay her family in damages. Even at that, the rates were mostly pink collar and the big number was attributed to the husband’s pain and suffering.”
—Gloria Steinem (20th century)
“...This
is the paradox of vision:
Sharp perception softens
our existence in the world.”
—Susan Griffin (b. 1943)