Talk:List of numbers

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Deletion discussion: Talk:List of numbers/Deletion

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[edit] Naming of number articles

The titles of articles about numbers should be spelled out, and a link should be added to the article for the "year" with the same number. Numbers over 100 that are not divisible by 100 (101-199, 201-299) should include the word "and". (See discussion at Talk:One hundred and eleven. GUllman

Where should I put a link to One thousand seven hundred and twenty nine?? (new, by me) -- AndrewKepert 05:35, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I've put it in thousand -- User:Karl Palmen 11 Nov 2003

"Numbers over 100 that are not divisible by 100 (101-199, 201-299) should not include the word "and". (See discussion at Talk:One hundred eleven. Denelson83 07:53, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)"

From the article:"(Articles about the numbers 21-29 will be developed at twenty until they are large enough for their own page, articles about 31-39 will be developed at thirty, articles about 101-199 will be developed at hundred, and so on.)"

This seems like a sensible way of avoiding stubs, but creates a couple of problems: Firstly, it can be quite confusing arriving at the "wrong" page by redirect, so care needs to be taken with the headings: see my suggestion at Talk:Twenty.

Secondly, it makes the see alsos a bit awkward, since e.g. Thirty currently links to itself several times (Thirty-one, Thirty-two, etc.), but not Forty, the next combined article - and yet, for consistency, it should do so, since that is the sequentially next integer. It also contains a section for Thirty-three, which points you to a full article - this mixture of combined and seperate is even harder to navigate, and I'm not sure it really makes sense.

[edit] Proposal

Both this page and English-language numerals have the nomenclature of English number names, and also a list of common numbers. I propose they are rationalised so that we have two closely-related (and interlinked) pages

On this page, the main change is that the big table will be replaced by a list of whole numbers bigger than 100. This could be done by continuing the 0-100 list in a sparse fashion. e.g.

100, 111, 127, 222, 255, 273, 451, 666
1000, 1729, 8191
131071
1000000=106, 1000000000=109
1012, 1015, 1018, 6.24×1018, 1021, 6.023×1023, 1024

and so on. Of course, the existing pages for Billion etc are essentially pages that disambiguate and explain some history. They should retain this role. The pages for the numbers 1021 don't exist.

Yes, and strictly speaking, the two physical constants I dropped into the list are probably not integers. They are there for example.

Food for thought, anyway. I may get around to this edit in the next week or so unless some other good ideas come in. --AndrewKepert 01:42, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Another way to organise these (and not disagreeing with Andrew above), from familiar to unfamilar:

(where these list items are really supposed to be headers). Notice also how we neatly get exactly one link per header (except in the natural numbers, due to that list's size), and also link to every term (both affirmative and negative). -- Toby Bartels 06:17, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] VfD

Quattuordecillion was listed on vfd for 8 days from Feb 23 to Mar 2 2004, and was redirected here. Pasted discussion from VfD:

  • Quattuordecillion - dictionary definition Anthony DiPierro 06:16, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Neutral. Could improve. Delete if not improve in 7 days -- Graham :) 11:14, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Relocate to Wiktionary. Oberiko 12:50, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Delete or Redirect. Being out of context, this doesn't make much sense. Would make much more sense as part of a numbers table (like in Webster's Dict). Main difference is the usage of "milliard" in Europe opposite to "billion" in the States to begin with. --Palapala 20:11, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • Numbers table is at List of numbers. Anthony DiPierro 22:19, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
        • Thanks, Anthony. Both entries are there, in the context, where they belong. So why a seperate article? --Palapala 08:44, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Yea, could improve?!! AY 05:25, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    • Move to wiktionary if not there already. Wile E. Heresiarch 12:13, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] zenzizenzizenzic

According to this link http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-zen1.htm it this term zenzizenzizenzic has been obsolete for centuries. Does it really belong here? It seems more like trivia. Thanks, BCorr ¤ Брайен 13:47, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

I do agree, it's more a "museum word" than a real english word. Maybe it should be explained in How to name numbers in English, since zenzic means "squared", zenzizenzic "fourth power", zenzicube "sixth power", and, we could add, zenzizenzizenzizenzix would be "16th power"... slord 15:02, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Names of really large numbers

Can your list of numbers go beyond 10^180?? Let me see if I got this correct:

  • 10^183 = sexagintillion
  • 10^213 = septuagintillion
  • 10^243 = octogintillion
  • 10^273 = nonagintillion
  • 10^303 = centillion
  • 10^603 = bicentillion
  • 10^903 = tercentillion
  • 10^1203 = quadricentillion
  • 10^1503 = quinquacentillion
  • 10^1803 = sexacentillion
  • 10^2103 = septuacentillion
  • 10^2403 = octocentillion
  • 10^2703 = nonacentillion
  • 10^3003 = millillion

User 66.32.154.142

[edit] Inconsistency on numbers pages

Number 911 redirects to 900 (number). 911 (number) is its own article.

That is ridiculous. Number 911 should redirect to 911 (number), which should have a link to 900 (number).

The second part is implemented here; the first is not.

Brianjd 06:38, 2004 Jun 19 (UTC)

Why not fix it then? — Lady Lysine Ikinsile 06:41, 2004 Jun 19 (UTC)
It redirects there because the text of 911 (number) used to be on 900 (number). Guess who split the page off .. -- User:Docu
The following pages do not exist:
There are probably a lot of changes to be made, so perhaps a bit of help?
Brianjd 07:21, 2004 Jun 19 (UTC)
Pages in the form "Number N" (0 to 40) or spelled out in words eg Nineteen (0 to 20) redirect correctly.
Brianjd 10:38, 2004 Jun 19 (UTC)
Pages in the form "Number N" (41 to 100) redirect correctly.
Brianjd 05:46, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)
Pages in the form "Number N" (101 to 122) redirect correctly.
Brianjd 12:26, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Disorganization

Great Lord, is this article ever disorganized. There are places where it repeats itself no fewer than three times. Was anyone paying attention when they added entries? I hope nobody minds if I copyedit and delete some unnecessary tables. --Ardonik 10:41, 2004 Aug 5 (UTC)

Go right ahead, and edit boldly! -- The Anome 10:44, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This way, I suppose we will figure out which ones are "unnessary".. -- User:Docu
I think the table of negative integers is unnecessary, since there are no plans to write articles on any negative integers besides -1 and -40. I've re-listed those two under "Notable Integers." Anton Mravcek 17:37, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Retraction

Boy howdy, I don't know how it happened, but this article is looking great now. Good work, everyone! Now, all that's left is to transplant/merge/move information between this article and Names of large numbers.... --[[User:Ardonik|Ardonik(talk)]] 01:35, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Million raised to the Nth power, thousand raised to the Nth power

Regarding a recent contribution by anonymous User:132.205.45.148, I think it's confusing to express the large numbers both in terms of powers of a million and in terms of powers of a thousand. I think the millionn is more comprehensible, so I'm reverting the change. (Sorry, anon; I know you must have worked on it for a while. Feel free to make your case here.) --[[User:Ardonik|Ardonik(talk)]] 02:21, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

The million# is adequate in relating the European way of numbering, but the American way is based on powers of a thousand. It illustrates how the name nonillion equates to 1000^(9+1), or 30 zeros, from the root part non (thus Vigintillion clearly shows the 20th power of 1000, times 1000; etc). It may be more clear of it is 1000*1000^9, but I entered it in a shorter manner. <br/
In case anyone reverts, there also contains a correction to an incorrect power of a million in my edit, you'll have to find that and reimplement it.
132.205.45.148
You have a good point; I never thought about the names of numbers that way before. I think I'll finish what you started and remove the powers of a million (keeping the powers of a thousand, of course) as soon as I can switch to a faster computer. Is it just me, or is the Wikipedia rather slow this afternoon? --[[User:Ardonik|Ardonik(talk)]] 21:37, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed systematic names for powers of 10

Why does this article give space for proposed systems? Elsewhere in Wikipedia, articles on proposed systems have been deleted since they only refer to proposed systems rather than actual systems in use. If these systems are actually being used somewhere in the world, then fine - rename them as actual systems. Otherwise, why not remove until such time as they are being used. Ian Cairns 22:17, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Surely if there is one place in this Wikipedia where even hypothetical English numbering systems are relevant, it would be here, in this article? How else could our readers compare, or even learn about such systems? --[[User:Ardonik|Ardonik(talk)]] 03:57, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
A case could be made for putting the information at How to name numbers in English. Or perhaps that article should refer to this article for info on the proposed systems. Anton Mravcek 18:04, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaned up discussion

The content of this Talk page seems to have been accidentally duplicated at the beginning of September 2004. I have removed the duplicate material, taking care not to delete any new (interpolated) discussion (of which there wasn't any, AFAICT). I also created a new first header ("Naming of number articles") and removed a link to /redirects on the very first line since it only redirected to Table of prime factors (apparently someone's redirection test performed outside of the Sandbox). - dcljr 23:51, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] History of number names

How close to being correct is the history of these number names:

[edit] One through Ten

The English number names from one to 10 are related through the Indo-European root to the corresponding prefixes for both Greek and Latin, with just one exception: mono- literally means single and one is just a synonym.

[edit] Hundred

According to the American Heritage Dictionary Third Edition (1997) the names for 100 in Greek, Latin, and English all have the same indo-European root, which is also the same as those for 10.

[edit] Thousand

This is where it starts to vary. Both the prefixes for 1000 in Greek chilia- and Latin mill- have the same root, but English's "thousand" is unrelated; it comes from German literally meaning "swollen hundred".

[edit] Ten thousand

Greek myria- for 10,000, prior to its number name, meant "countless", and was chosen perhaps because the Greeks described it as a number "too large to count to".

[edit] Million (10^6)

The word million, meaning 10^6, is common to almost all languages of today. I think it is simply an augmented form of the Latin word for 1000.

[edit] Gillion (10^9)

Rowlett's proposed word for 10^9 is a combination of the SI prefix "giga" and the illion suffix, on the model of mega/million.

[edit] 10^12 to 10^30

The remainder of Rowlett's proposed words are simply Greek numerical prefixes attatched to the illion suffix, simply to differentiate it from the traditional system with Latin numerical prefixes.

[edit] Googol (10^100)

Googol, I really don't know how it came. It was coined around 1940 by someone who wanted to think about huge numbers, but I never found how this word actually came to be as it is. Is it an alteration of goggle or short for googoogoogoo...?? 66.245.115.43 20:00, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There's a book at the library that talks about this very thing. I'm going to check it out, let you know what I find in there. PrimeFan 21:49, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Look under Edward Kasner, the mathematician who introduced the term (it was originally named by his nephew). Google was named after Googol. Ian Cairns 21:58, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "few" and "several"

I'm skeptical about the claims that "few" and (especially) "several" are often most associated with fixed values. Can anyone corroborate? 4pq1injbok 13:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Frankly I don't think those additions to the article are serious. Anyway, I have merged the entire section in question into the article Placeholder name, where similar material was already to be found -- leaving just a link here in the List of numbers article. (Can someone find a more proper way to include this link in the article?) In the process, I removed those remarks assigning specific values to few and several.--Niels Ø 13:20, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vigesimal English names

i.e. the system with scores. The consistent thing to do would be to give vigesimal names for either every number (in an appropriate range) or none of them. Of course, threescore and ten is notable for its appearance in Psalms 90:10, so it may deserve its special place; in this case four score and seven is similarly notable. Thoughts? 4pq1injbok 01:43, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed section

I want to see if anyone has any opinions on whether the proposed systematic names section should have its own article. This was brought to my attention by Rowlett's Afd. Georgia guy 23:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll bring this up at the Talk of WP:NUM. PrimeFan 14:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] perdime & perdecime

Is there any verifiable source for perdime and perdecime being the appropriate corresponding term for one tenth on the lines of percent and permille? And I do mean a source not derived from wikipedia itself. -- Cimon avaro; on a pogostick. 15:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Base 64

It will be quite interesting if someone add to the neat table in each number article contained also the representation in the Base 64 system used to encode e-mails...

In time: Someone has any reference on the babylonian base 60 system? It is "writable" in the modern ocidental aphabet? --Lucas Gallindo 21:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Babylonian numerals are composed of cuneiform symbols that do not correspond to anything in any modern script. However, I believe some Medieval and Renaissance mathematical writings used base 60 by writing each sexagit (a word I just invented for a base-60 digit) as a Roman or Arabic number, separated by some mark. —Tamfang 22:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I think Plane 2 of Unicode might have cuneiform symbols. Or maybe math historians have their own private use area assignments and fonts for them. Anton Mravcek 16:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
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