Lots of people say they have a favorite number; fewer people would say they have lots and lots of favorite numbers that neatly fit into a favorite number sequence. You know, like primes, Fibonacci numbers, the Extra strong Lucas Pseudoprimes. And even fewer would ever admit to having a favorite number sequence song.
But for those who do...
Neil Sloane, a fellow at AT&T, maintains the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, which contains 136,699 different sequences. The sequence used as an example on the home page is “Busy Beaver problem: maximal number of steps that an n-state Turing machine can make on an initially blank tape before eventually halting.”
The search function on the site allows users to enter a few numbers and see if they fit any of the sequences in the data base. Or, if you just have a number and want to see how it and its divisors fit in to the world of sequences, you can go here. The title of the page is “Find a friend.”
Now here’s where the real time wasting comes in: Sloane has kindly equipped the database with a program (a web interface for Musicalgorithms) that converts your favorite sequence to music. Ever wondered what the primes sound like? Go here and click play. One down, 136,698 to go.
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