Why is the number 2012 such a big deal?
I was in Borders or Barnes and Nobles the other day and I saw a bunch of books with the number 2012 on the cover. I’m sure there are tons of people trying to cash in on the next big end-of-the-world scenario which is sometime around the equinox on December 21st in the year 2012. So here’s a bunch of interesting facts about the number 2012.
It’s a year in which there are five Wednesdays in February. The last time this happened was 1984 and the next would will be in 2040.
It’s a Canyon Number. The structure of the digits represents a canyon. The first and last digits are the same, but all the digits inbetween are progressively smaller as you get toward the center position. The biggest number that matches this pattern is 9876543210123456789. If you laid this out on a scantron, it would look like a giant V.
a(n)=1/120*n*(n^4+10*n^3+35*n^2+50*n+144). This sequence starts like this: 2, 8, 24, 60, 131, 258, 469, 800, 1296, 2012, 3014. I’m sure somewhere to someone, this means something crazy.
Number of binary sequences of length n containing exactly one subsequence 001. Come on now, doesn’t this sound like there should be a spooky reasoning behind this? Ok there’s not, it just is what it is.
Triangle read by rows: T(n,k) is number of paths from (0,0) to (3n,0) that stay in the first quadrant (but may touch the horizontal axis), consisting of steps u=(2,1),U=(1,2), or d=(1,-1), and having sum of the heights of its pyramids equal to k (a pyramid is a sequence u^pd^p or U^pd^(2p) for some positive integer p, starting at the x-axis; p is the height of the pyramid). So now you’re asking where the heck did he get all these stupid facts?
No, I didn’t look all these up in a bunch of books. I found a site where you can plug in any sequence of number(s) and it will tell you all about them. Freaking great when you run across a sequence you know you recognize but don’t know the name of, or that you need the formula for!!! Freaking amazing, I know right?
Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences
http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/Seis.html
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