King Wen Sequence - Explanation

Explanation

Over the centuries there were many attempts to explain this sequence. Some basic elements are obvious: each symbol is paired with an "upside-down" neighbor, except for 1, 27, 29, and 61 which are "vertically" symmetrical and paired with "inversed" neighbors.

Its combinatorial mathematical basis was reportedly explained for the first time in 2006.

Read more about this topic:  King Wen Sequence

Famous quotes containing the word explanation:

    There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
    W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

    My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is said that words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, about what is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.
    Bas Van Fraassen (b. 1941)