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All the Numbers - Numberphile

All the Numbers - Numberphile

Numberphile
6 HN recommenders · discussed 2019–2025
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About this video

Matt Parker talks Numberphile through the different kinds of numbers: algebraic, transcendental, computable, normal, and beyond. It shows how few numbers we can actually name or describe.

Why it appears in the archive

HN recommends it as an accessible explanation of number categories and why almost all numbers are unknowable.

AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.

From the Hacker News discussion

ccvannorman · 2019-08 · strong rec

It's fascinating how little we know about everyday numbers like pi and e, it's widely assumed that they are normal but there is no proof for this (and it's extremely difficult to do so). In fact we believe the fast majority of numbers are transcendental and normal but we only actually know of a single normal number, and it is a manufactured number. Numberphile has an excellent video on the numbers we know about and the quest to find / define normal numbers: [VIDEO]

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StrangeDoctor · 2019-03 · rec

That's actually most numbers, but we don't know any yet. [VIDEO] numberphile (math YouTube series) describing some related concepts here.

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mjlee · 2019-03 · rec

It feels like every time there's a mathematics post on the front page I post a video by Matt Parker. This time, here's a video that explains from the basics what kinds of numbers exist: [VIDEO]

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KboPAacDA3 · 2020-01 · rec

Numberphile has a video explaining the relationship between the number categories, and includes a brief discussion of where Chaitin's Constant belongs. [VIDEO]

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deepspace · 2020-08 · rec

I found Matt Parker's video to be a good way to visualize the fact that we 'know' essentailly 0% of numbers: [VIDEO]

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gcanyon · 2025-02 · rec

This video parallels the article, going further. I love the tag line, "We know none of the numbers." [VIDEO]

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gcanyon · 2025-10 · rec

You might appreciate this video where Matt Parker lays out the various classes of numbers and concludes by describing the normal numbers as being the overwhelmingly vast proportion of numbers and laments "we mathematicians think we know what's what, but so far we have found none of the numbers." [VIDEO]

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jerf · 2019-08 · reference

It's worse than you make it sound, though: [VIDEO] In short, it isn't just that we have more computables than non-computables; there are categories of numbers like "normal" that nominally contain "all the numbers" but we can barely even name a handful.

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