All the Numbers - Numberphile

Numberphile · 1.8M views · 2019-03-04 · 14:27

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

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

Recommended by 6 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2019–2025

Topics

Recreational & visual math Pure mathematics Computability & complexity theory

What people said

ccvannorman · 2019-08 · Strong recommendation
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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gcanyon · 2025-10 · Recommendation
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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gcanyon · 2025-02 · Recommendation
This video parallels the article, going further. I love the tag line, "We know none of the numbers." [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by Numberphile, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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