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:
“The record of ones life must needs prove more interesting to him who writes it than to him who reads what has been written.
I have no name:
I am but two days old.
What shall I call thee?
I happy am,
Joy is my name.
Sweet joy befall thee!”
—William Blake (17571827)
“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“...This
is the paradox of vision:
Sharp perception softens
our existence in the world.”
—Susan Griffin (b. 1943)