The Quite Incredible Number List: The Top 100
| 83 | In some Jewish communities, when someone reaches 83 they may celebrate a second bar mitzvah. | Strawberry |
| 168 | Bangkok's official name, transliterated into English, has 168 letters: Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit. | Tas (amended) |
| 231 | "Zimbabwe inflation hits 231 million per cent" was reported in the Daily Telegraph on 9 October 2008. | Zebra57 |
| 359 | Douglas Adams once claimed that 359 was the funniest three-digit number. | Ed. |
| 432 | In the late 19th century, the composer Giuseppe Verdi tried to standardise orchestral pitch so that the note A above middle C was set to 432 Hz, sometimes known as "Verdi tuning". (440 Hz is now commonly used as the standard.) | Awitt |
| 568 | Infinity tumbling is the most difficult aerobatic paragliding manoeuvre to perform, with the pilot flipping over the vertical line of the paraglide sail in consecutive loops. Paraglider Horacio Llorens flew up to 19,300 feet before jumping from a helicopter, opening his paraglider and looping for around 15 minutes, hitting an incredible 568 rotations -- breaking the previous record by 194 loops. | bemahan |
| 639 | The John Cage Organ Project’s version of ORGAN2 /ASLSP will last for 639 years. It began on 5 September 2001 – what would have been Cage’s 89th birthday – and is scheduled to end on 5 September 2640. As the performance started, there wasn’t much to see or hear, because it began with a 17-month-long rest. Since then, notes have been added to or subtracted from the organ’s powerful drone 12 times. | bemahan |
| 719 | The Electric Brae on the A719, south of Dunure in Ayrshire, is an example of a "gravity hill", where due to an optical illusion the apparent upward slope of the hill is actually downhill. | GuyBarry |
| 836 | Michael Cooke, a security man guarding the main stage at the Download Festival 2011 held at Donington Park, became a minor internet celebrity through his unusual antics. He was known as 836 owing to the number "0836" on his vest. | GuyBarry |
| 945 | According to the Urban Dictionary, Rule 945 can be invoked by anyone who hears the word "sorry" in a circumstance where the person saying it has no responsibility in the situation, e.g. "My cat died" "I'm sorry" "rule 945". Punishments vary from person to person. It originates with this xkcd cartoon (linked). | GuyBarry |
| 1091 | Britain's first recorded tornado struck London on 17th October 1091, damaging London Bridge and St. Mary-le-Bow church. | Ian Dunn |
| 1212 | Nachtsender 1212 (or Radio 1212) was installed in Luxembourg by the US Army in December 1944 and operated until April 1945, broadcasting a mix of news and speculative propaganda targeted at German soldiers and civilians in the Rhineland in an effort to undermine their morale. | AlmondFacialBar |
| 1258 | It is believed that in 1258 there was a volcanic eruption 8 times as large as the Krakatoa eruption of 1883. The eruption has been linked to the Samalas volcano, in the Mount Rinjani Volcanic Complex on Indonesia’s Lombok Island. | Ian Dunn |
| 1360 | In 1979, aged 16, Jadav "Molai" Payeng began planting seeds along a barren sandbar near his birthplace in India's Assam region. Now that once-barren sandbar is a sprawling 1,360 acre forest, home to several thousands of varieties of trees and an astounding diversity of wildlife -- including birds, deer, apes, rhino, elephants and even tigers. Officials in the region only learned of the forest, single-handedly planted and cultivated by Payeng and called the "Molai woods" after its creator's nickname, in 2008. | ellylles |
| 1411 | Apparently, whilst it takes just 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off and only 1,339 QI Facts To Make Your Jaw Drop, it takes 1,411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways. | ellylles |
| 1549 | On January 15 2009, US Airways flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River in New York following a bird strike shortly after take-off. All passengers and crew were picked up safely. | Big Martin |
| 1652 | Cosmographie was published in 1652 in which Peter Heylin attempted to describe the entire world in English. It is famous for containing the first description of Australia. | vanjeet |
| 1729 | 1729 is known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number after a famous anecdote of the British mathematician G. H. Hardy regarding a visit to the hospital to see the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. In Hardy's words, "I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
| 1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103 |
| Efros |
| 1777 | Tu'i Malila (verified as the longest-lived tortoise) was hatched around 1777 and in the same year given by Captain Cook to the Tongan royal family. | vanjeet |
| 1906 | In December 1906, Martha Baer became the first person to undergo sex-change surgery, and later became Karl M. Baer. | vanjeet |
| 2030 | In the Simpsons episode "Bart to the Future", first aired in March 2000, a fortune teller gave Bart a glimpse of 2030 - just weeks after Trump vacated the White House. [This post was written in 2015, when Donald Trump had not yet become president in reality! - Ed.] | bemahan |
| 2122 | The St. Valentine's Day Massacre took place at 2122, North Clark Street. | Strawberry |
| 2291 | It was reported in 2015 that Boris Johnson (then Mayor of London and MP for Uxbridge) was being paid £2291 per hour to write his column in the Daily Telegraph. | Wirish |
| 2355 | The only landfall in the path of the Total Solar Eclipse of June 11 2355 (according to current prediction) is Marion Island, an area of 19 km long by 12 km wide which lies at 46°52'34" South 37°51'32" East in the Southern Indian Ocean. | ellylles |
| 2447 | "Pennsylvania v 2,447 Bottles of Wine" was the name given to the case of Arthur Goldman, who was accused in 2014 of selling alcohol without a licence. | Big Martin |
| 2557 | Here's a link to an article about a man that ran 2557 miles across Australia. With a wheelbarrow. | Strawberry |
| 2666 | 2666 is the last novel by Robert Bolaño. It was released in 2004, a year after Bolaño's death. Its themes are manifold, and it relates, among other things, the unsolved and ongoing homicides of Ciudad Juárez (called Santa Teresa in the novel), the Eastern Front in the Second World War, and the breakdown of relationships and careers. The apocalyptic 2666 explores 20th-century degeneration through a wide array of characters, locations, and stories within stories. | Strawberry |
| 2731 | There are 2731 ways to tie a tie into a knot with 15 turns, if ways which are mirror-images of each other are counted as the same. And if the tie is long enough for 15 turns! | WordLover |
| 2820 | A period of 2820 years is used as a base to calculate leap years in the Iranian/Persian Calendar. | JivviWesty |
| 2996 | The September 11 attacks killed 2996 people. | Strawberry |
| 3039 | PSR J0737-3039 is the only known double pulsar, consisting of two neutron stars in a relatavistic binary system. | Big Martin |
| 3147 | According to a sign in Land's End, New York is 3,147 miles away. | Strawberry |
| 3204 | 3204 Lindgren is a main belt asteroid named after the Swedish author. In what must be one of the most groanworthy puns in the history of astronomy it is also known as Asteroid Lindgren. | AlmondFacialBar |
| 3319 | 23319 is the smallest thousand-digit number of the form 2n. | GuyBarry |
| 3454 | Jungfraujoch is an underground railway station situated below the Jungfraujoch col in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland. At 3,454 metres (11,332 ft) above sea level, this is the highest railway station in Europe, and is close to the summits of the Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch mountains. | Strawberry |
| 3539 | The Canard is listed as plane number 3539 in the Paper Airplane Gallery of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, who say: "The Canard is excellent for long-distance flights and flights requiring accuracy. Its forward wings give you extra control over its flying characteristics." | GuyBarry |
| 3652 | According to the 2011 census, a total of 3,652 residents (81.7%) of Chirk in Wrexham have no skills in the Welsh language. | Strawberry |
| 3797 | Allegedly, Nostradamus' last prophecy is about the year 3797. | Big Martin |
| 3849 | The longest yoga chain involved 3849 participants at an event organised by the Kshatriya Vidhyasala Managing Board (India) in Tamilnadu, India, on 14 November 2014. The length of the chain measured 3852m. | Big Martin |
| 3906 | Chronicles From the Future is the story of Paul Amadeus Dienach, a Swiss-Austrian teacher with fragile health, who falls into a one-year-long coma. During this time, his consciousness slides into the future and enters the body of another man in 3906 A.D. It purports to be a true story (and is claimed to be so on a number of internet sites) but is actually the work of George Papachatzis, later prominent Professor of Law and Rector of Panteion University of Greece. | GuyBarry |
| 4077 | You can't let the number 4077 go by without mentioning M*A*S*H, the US film and TV series set at the fictional "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in Uijeongbu, South Korea. The lyrics of its theme tune, "Suicide is Painless", were written by a 14-year-old child, Michael Altman, with no other experience of songwriting, who subsequently became a millionaire from the song. | Big Martin/GuyBarry |
| 4137 | The '32 Lindrum cue has a badge recording the 4,137 record break scored by Walter Lindrum on January 20th 1932 when playing against Joe Davis. Link | Big Martin |
| 4236 | The American songwriter and producer Peter Hollens claims the world record for the most names ever on an album. He credited all 4236 of his supporters who contributed financially and suggested the songs included in his album A Hollens Family Christmas. | GuyBarry |
|
4365 | The supposed "equation" 398712 + 436512 = 447212 occurs briefly in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace". It can't be a genuine equation, because of Fermat's Last Theorem, but the two sides differ by 0.000000002% and agree to 10 decimal digits, so that the values would appear to be the same on many calculators. This is just one of a number of mathematical jokes smuggled into The Simpsons.
| GuyBarry |
| 4385 | It has been estimated that the comet Hale-Bopp will be visible from Earth again in 4385 AD. | Big Martin |
| 4444 | Flørli in Norway is a roadless hamlet served by four ferries per day, home to a hydroelectric power station. It's known for its 4444 steps right up the mountain - the longest wooden stairway in the world. | GuyBarry |
| 4577 | Here's a recording of the Russian "English Man" numbers station on 4577 kHz. These broadcasts are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries, though their existence has never been officially admitted. | GuyBarry |
| 4797 | Here's a picture, taken on 27th June 2018, of children and teachers from local schools sitting on the Long Walk in Windsor Great Park in front of Windsor Castle, alongside a card prepared as a gift for the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It was a Guinness World Records record attempt for the title of the Longest Concertina Folded card, by the Busy Buttons Design Centre CIC and a wide cross-section of the local community. The card was signed by 4797 people and has an unconfirmed length of 1367 metres. | GuyBarry |
| 4859 | Witold's Report was the first comprehensive record of a Holocaust death camp to be obtained by the Allies. It was written in 1943 by Witold Pilecki, a soldier in the Polish Army and a secret agent of the Polish resistance, who entered and escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp. His inmate number was 4859. | GuyBarry |
| 4940 | The prime meridian and the equator cross in the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa in a place jokingly known as Null Island. In actual fact there is no island there and the depth of the sea is around 4940 metres. | AlmondFacialBar |
| 5062 | FactRepublic fact 5062 concerns the death of Garry Hoy in 1993 whilst trying to prove that the glass in a 24th floor office was unbreakable by throwing himself against it. | Big Martin |
| 5127 | According to an article on Gizmodo James Dyson created 5,127 unsuccessful prototypes before getting the vacuum cleaner formula right. | Big Martin |
| 5345 | In 2012 claims appeared on the internet that a first-century fragment of Mark's Gospel had been discovered, which would have been the earliest known manuscript of the Greek New Testament. It was revealed earlier this year that the fragment actually dates from the second or third century. It bears the number P.Oxy LXXXIII 5345 from the Egypt Exploration Society. | GuyBarry |
| 5412 | NSC 5412, the "National Security Council Directive on Covert Operations", was secretly approved in the US on March 15 1954. It sanctioned a large programme of anti-Communist activities in Indochina and throughout the world. | GuyBarry |
| 5494 | The world's tallest totem pole is 54.94 metres (or 5494 centimetres) high and is at the Victoria BC Museum on Vancouver Island. | Big Martin |
| 5614 | One of the longest structures in the world is the 5614-kilometre Dingo Fence, built in Australia during the 1880s to keep dingoes out of the south-eastern part of the continent and protect sheep flocks. It has been partly successful, although the exclusion of dingoes has allowed for increased pasture competition from rabbits, kangaroos and emus. | GuyBarry |
| 5650 | A woman accidentally gave a kebab shop a £5650 tip in May 2018. Russian national Olesya Shemyakova was visiting Dietikon, in the swiss canton of Zurich, and mistakenly entered her PIN number a second time instead of the amount she wanted to pay. | GuyBarry |
| 5698 | In July 2017, a 5698-square-kilometre, trillion-ton iceberg broke away from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, and floated out into the Weddell Sea. | GuyBarry |
| 5844 | In November 2013, 19-year-old Tyler James persuaded the Toronto Transit Commission to let him have the number identification plate 5844 from one of its subway cars so that he could give it to his grandmother as a gift. The cars were due to be scrapped, and he had had a cherished memory of that plate number ever since he first rode the subway with his grandmother when he was six years old. | GuyBarry |
| 5877 | The Guinness World Record for the largest coconut ensemble was 5,877 people playing their coconuts to the tune of "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" in Trafalgar Square on St George's Day 2007. | Big Martin |
| 6025 | There are 6025 petals of the Flower of Life after the 45th iteration. The Flower of Life is a grid of overlapping circles created in the following fashion:
| (i) Start with two circles of radius s with centres at the ends of a straight line of length s. |
| (ii) At each subsequent step, draw circles by placing centres at the intersection points of the circumferences of circles in the previous iteration, with overlaps forbidden. |
| GuyBarry |
| 6055 | John Metcalf, known as "Blind Jack of Knaresborough", was the first professional road builder to emerge during the Industrial Revolution. Despite being blinded at the age of six, he was responsible for building about 180 miles of turnpike road in the late 18th century. His career began in 1765 with a contract to build a three-mile section of road between Minskip and Ferrensby in North Yorkshire, now part of the A6055. | GuyBarry |
| 6174 | 6174 is perhaps one of the most remarkable four-digit numbers in respect of its mathematical properties. It's sometimes known as "Kaprekar's constant" after the Indian mathematician D.R. Kaprekar.
| 1. Take any four-digit number that uses at least two different digits. |
| 2. Arrange the digits in descending and then in ascending order to get two four-digit numbers (including leading zeros if necessary). |
| 3. Subtract the smaller number from the bigger number. |
| 4. Go back to step 2 and repeat. |
The above process will always reach 6174 in at most seven iterations, and then stays there permanently. | GuyBarry |
| 6267 | Whilst Chimborazo is "only" 6,267 metres high, due to its position near the equator, the top of the mountain is actually the furthest point from the earth's core. | Big Martin |
| 6453 | The world record for fastest railed vehicle is held by a rocket sled at Holloman Airforce Base, NM, that accelerated a 87 kg payload to 2886 metres per second, which scales up to 6,453 mph. | AlmondFacialBar |
| 6563 |
NM 6563, also known as the also known as the Sunspot Scenic Byway, is one of only three four-digit state highways in New Mexico. It takes its number from the wavelength of the Hydrogen-alpha spectral line (6563 Å) used by scientists at the National Solar Observatory to study the solar chromosphere and to locate solar flares on the Sun. | Brock |
| 6666 | It hardly needs to be mentioned that the digits of 6666 are all identical. All the more remarkable, then, that its fourth power contains a string of ten digits that are all different: 66664 = 1974518637029136 | Brock |
| 6706 | The backyard ultra is a form of ultramarathon race where competitors must consecutively run the distance of 6706 metres in less than one hour. When each lap is completed, the remaining time within the hour is typically used to recover for the next hour's race. The distance was calculated so that a competitor who runs 24 laps covers a total of 100 miles. The race ends when the last runner or runners either concede or fail to finish the distance within the allotted time frame.
| Brock |
| 6773 | The Human Rights Tattoo project is aiming to tattoo one character each of the Declaration of Human Rights on 6,773 people around the world. | Big Martin |
| 6911 | The Vela incident, also known as the South Atlantic Flash, was an unidentified double flash of light detected by the American Vela satellite OPS 6911 on 22 September 1979 near the Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean. The cause of the flash remains officially unknown, but today most independent researchers believe that it was caused by a nuclear explosion - perhaps an undeclared nuclear test carried out by South Africa and Israel. | Brock |
| 7074 | LCT 7074 is the last remaining landing craft tank in the UK. It was used in the Normandy landings in 1944, and served as a floating nightclub in Liverpool during the 60s and 70s. After that it fell into disrepair and sank in Birkenhead docks, but it was raised in 2014 and sent to Portsmouth for restoration. In June this year, it finally re-opened to the public as part of the D-Day Story exhibition. | Brock |
| 7112 | When the mountaineers Ralf Dujmovits and Nancy Hansen entered the hypoxia chamber at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Cologne in May 2018, they were effectively climbing one of the highest peaks of their careers. After a two-week acclimatisation, they spent 16 days breathing air thinner than at Everest base camp - including four days at the equivalent of 7112 metres. | Brock |
| 7211 | The Guinness World Record for the highest altitude cycling was set in 2009 at 7,211 metres up Mount Muztagata in China. | Big Martin |
| 7307 | In 2021, a company calling itself "Dankwoods Dispensary", claiming to supply legal recreational marijuana, invited customers who'd paid in advance to pick supplies up from 7307 Roosevelt Road, Forest Park, Illinois. However it was actually the address of a bar whose manager knew nothing about the scam.
| Brock |
| 7399 | Jockey Hugh Morgan claimed a £7399 prize for winning on Young Dev at Navan racecourse last February after his stirrup broke at the first fence. The horse's odds went to 499-1 as bookmakers thought he had no chance at all. | Brock |
| 7473 | In 2015, the artist Michael Mandiberg announced that he was making a 7471-volume printed version of Wikipedia available for $500,000. By the time it was uploaded for printing, it was actually 7473 volumes at 700 pages each. That's how fast it grows! (In fact it was never printed in full - he printed out 106 volumes for an exhibition and the rest was made available for print-on-demand.) | Brock |
| 7681 | The World Record for participants in an outdoor snowball fight is 7,681 and was set in Saskatoon, Canada in January 2016. Coincidentally, the World Record for participants in a pillow fight is also 7,681 and was set in Minneapolis in May 2018. | Big Martin |
| 7721 | The World Record for the most golf balls hit in 12 hours is 7,721. | Big Martin |
| 7818 | The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 caused a 50-foot tidal wave (tsunami) that travelled as far as Cape Horn, 7818 miles away. | Brock |
| 7946 | For fictitious phone numbers for TV programmes etc. set in London, numbers in the 020 7946 0xxx range are used. | Big Martin |
| 8017 | The Torre de Comares is the highest tower in the Alhambra. The ceiling has 8017 separate pieces of wood in 7 concentric circles with superimposed cedar-wood adornments crowned by central mocarabe boss. | bemahan |
| 8068 | What's the safest 4-digit PIN? No one knows, but it was once 8068. In 2012 a group of researchers at Data Genetics reportedly went through 3.4 million PINs and discovered that the least common was 8068, which came up only 25 times. They then published their results, which of course meant that 8068 was no longer the safest PIN. Possibly the most counter-productive piece of research in history. (In fact they didn't get hold of 3.4 million actual PINs. Instead, they used data from released/exposed/discovered password tables and security breaches, and filtered the results to those that consisted of exactly four digits.) | Brock |
| 8150 | The Book of Genesis does not mention the height of the Tower of Babel. However the Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish religious work, puts its height at 5433 cubits and 2 palms, which equates to 8150 feet. | Brock |
| 8239 | The World's largest Time Warp dance involved 8,239 participants in West Hollywood, California for Halloween 2010. | Big Martin |
| 8418 | Ariana Grande has "8418" tattooed on her foot. | Big Martin |
| 8612 | 8612 is the number of a prisoner in the Stanford prisoner experiment. It's generally considered to be one of the most unethical psychology experiments in history - volunteers were randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards to see how they behaved. After 36 hours, so-called "Prisoner 8612" was released after an apparent mental breakdown (though he later suggested that he might have simulated it). The experiment was ended early after six days. | Awitt/Brock |
| 8661 | The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion in the US that satirizes better-known belief systems. In July 1998 they held an event to celebrate the coming of aliens; when they didn't turn up, the leader (the Rev. Ivan Stang) speculated that they might arrive in 8661, which is 1998 turned upside-down. | Brock |
| 8695 | Melissa Doi, who died in the September 11 attacks in 2001, is known for the recording of the 911 call she made during her final few minutes while the South Tower was engulfed in flames, which was answered by NYPD Dispatcher 8695. The recording was used during the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only criminal trial to result from the attacks. Only the first four minutes of the 24-minute call were released by the courts, and the extract can be heard here. | Brock |
| 8712 | A female grey wolf tagged in Oregon as OR-54 clocked up a minimum 8712 miles of wanderings between January 2018 and December 2019. She's thought to have looked for a mate. | AlmondFacialBar |
| 8933 | The second most-edited Wikipedia page of 2016 was the one on Donald Trump, with 8933 edits. It was beaten only by "Deaths in 2016" (18,230 edits). | Brock |
| 9030 | In January 2023, a squirrel caused a power outage that affected 9030 customers of BC Hydro in North Vancouver, Canada. | Brock |
| 9092 | The last palindromic date in DD/MM/YYYY format before the year 10000 is Sep 29 9092 (29/09/9092). | Brock |
| 9271 | One of the world's largest sculptures is Maman by Louise Bourgeois, at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The sculpture, which depicts a spider, has dimensions of 9271 x 8915 x 10236 mm. | Brock |
| 9398 | Ashrita Furman is a multiple world record holder, including mountain climbing on stilts with a height achieved of 9,398 feet. | Big Martin |
| 9470 | The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was released by the B29 bomber Enola Gay at 9,470 metres above the city. | Big Martin |
| 9550 | Old Tjikko is a 9550-year-old Norway spruce, located on Fulufjället Mountain of Dalarna province in Sweden. It originally gained fame as the "world's oldest tree", but is in fact a clonal tree that has regenerated new trunks, branches and roots over millennia rather than an individual tree of great age. | Brock |
| 9594 | In a controversial experiment conducted in 1964, sometimes known as Operation Bongo II, a series of sonic booms were generated over Oklahoma City in order to test public attitudes and their effects on structures in the city. During this time there were 9594 complaints of damage to buildings, and the experiment was ended prematurely after six months. | Brock |
| 9728 | Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, on average there were 9728 aeroplanes in the sky at any one time, carrying more than 1.2 million passengers (2017 figures). | Brock |
| 9888 | In April 2018 environmental officers and police investigated a rancid smell coming from a house in Toliara, a town on the southwestern coast of Madagascar. They found 9888 live radiated tortoises, a rare species found only in Madagascar - and 180 dead ones. | Brock |
| 9931 | The furthest distance between two rounds of golf played on the same day by the same person is 9,931 miles. | Big Martin |
