#01 The book of numbers
Meera plans to write a book (in English) containing all the whole numbers from zero to infinity in alphabetical order. She knows this will take her a very long time, but she makes a start. She figures that first on her alphabetical list is the number eight. After a while, she tires of the task and jumps to the last page and starts working backwards. She reckons that the last entry will be zero.
Curiously, even though this book will take forever to finish writing, it is possible to state which number will be listed second, and which will be second-last. What are those two numbers?
By the way, when Meera wants to write numbers bigger than the quadrillions (numbers with 15 zeroes) she strings numbers together, for example 鈥渙ne billion trillion鈥� or 鈥渇ive million million quadrillion鈥�.
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Quick quiz #01
1. Which German city houses the European Space Agency鈥檚 main mission control centre?
2. Asperitas, cavum, cauda and murus were officially recognised as types of what by the World Meteorological Organization in 2017?
3. What name is given to the delusional belief that you are actually dead?
4. The US chemist Linus Pauling won the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1954, and eight years later in what other discipline?
5. 鈥�The hobbit鈥� was the catchy name given to a small-statured, extinct hominin species found in 2003 on what Indonesian island?
Answers below
Answers
1. Darmstadt
2. Cloud
3. Cotard鈥檚 syndrome
4. Peace, for his campaigning against nuclear weapons testing
5. Flores, hence its official name Homo floresiensis
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