Facts about numbers everyone should know

Numbers are everywhere. Your age, house number, date of birth, phone number, the time. We use numbers daily without thinking about it. If you do stop to think, numbers and maths are pretty incredible!

2 is the only even prime number! This is because all other even numbers are divisible by 2.

Numbers on the opposite side of a dice always equal 7.

An integer is a positive or negative whole number.

There’s no Roman numeral for zero.

A dozen is 12.

A baker’s dozen is 13!

A score is 20.

Did you know that the British and Americans have different systems for naming numbers over 1 million?

The number four is the only number with the same number of letters as its value!

In the word forty, the letters are arranged in alphabetical order.

Between 0 and 1000, the only number with an ‘a’ in it is one thousand.

All odd numbers contain an ‘e’.

How many days are there in a year?

Each year has 365 days unless it’s a leap year when there are 366.

What number is pi?

To two decimal places, pi is 3.14.

What is a googol?

A googol is 1 followed by 100 zeros or 10¹⁰⁰

What is a Googolplex?

A googolplex is 1 followed by a googol of zeros or 10^googol

What is a jiffy?

A jiffy is 1/100th of a second!

What comes after a trillion?

A quadrillion comes after a trillion, followed by:

Quintillion 10¹⁸

Sextillion 10²¹

Septillion 10²⁴

Octillion 10²⁷

Nonillion 10³⁰

Decillion 10³³

Undecillion 10³⁶

Duodecillion 10³⁹

What is an imaginary number?

An imaginary number is a number that, when squared, has a negative result.

What is the Fibonacci sequence?

The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two numbers that came before.

For example:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34

Finding maths in nature

Fibonacci numbers are commonly seen in nature. The Romanesco Brocolli has flowers that form repeating perfect spiral patterns called fractals. Each bus is made up of smaller buds also arranged in spirals. The number of spirals is a Fibonacci number.

Fibonacci numbers are also seen in pinecones, petals, seed heads, shells and even spiral galaxies!