Number nine, number nine
The internet seems to be in a state of infantile hyper-activity over today’s date. In response to this, I was minded to tweet something about the boringness of the number 999. Some numbers are interesting; they are members of notable sequences, for example, or they are the smallest number to have some significant property. Now, there is a familiar, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek ‘proof’ that there are no boring numbers. Suppose otherwise, then since the natural numbers are well-ordered by <, there must be a smallest boring number. Call this number x. But x has the property of being the smallest boring number, which is surely significant. So x is not boring. Contradiction.
This smacks of slight-of-hand. My impression is that we should simply disallow that being the smallest boring number is a significant property. Assuming that, or some other response, blocks the proof that there are no boring numbers, is it now open to me to claim that 999 is boring, and that the tubes shouldn’t be getting so worked up about it? Alas not. It turns out that 11630 is the smallest boring number. Ergo 999 is interesting after all. Carry on.
