The Curious Case Of The Interesting Number Paradox
What is your favourite number?
Every single person I know well in my life has a favourite number. I have always found this topic intriguing. My personal favourite is the number 5. If you asked me why it had to be 5 though, my answer would be irrational (pun intended).
Something about the way 5 slices tens draws me in. It helps that I have five digits in each of my hands and legs. Furthermore, 5 has a certain curvature about it. But at the same time, it features straight lines as well. And to top it all off, 5 is prime!
I am pretty sure that you have your own “irrational” reasoning to justify your favourite number. Is it a single-digit number? Is it a double-digit number? I wonder if anyone out there has 26879542 as their favourite number. So many questions! And yet, every single one of them leads to irrational answers.
Along the same lines, here is an interesting question:
Can we classify every natural number (1, 2, 3…) as “interesting” or “uninteresting”?
It turns out that an attempt to do this would lead us to a funny paradox.
