A Puzzle: Mathematical spellings

[wwtmhemen]

the imaginary number I

(its the square root of negative one)

[kamalolz1]

what is it?



[St34DyB0y1409]

Accent as in to talk in an accent

[St34DyB0y1409]

hi as in a greeting

[St34DyB0y1409]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz as in to fall asleep

[St34DyB0y1409]

Abcent as in not going to school or is that absent

[webmastertool]

zero

[thedesertrose99]

From one to twenty each number has its own spelling but none of them are in an alphabetical order. After twenty, the numbers one to nine are attached to the spellings of numbers(except round figures) so they cannot be in alphabetical order. That leaves only the round numbers and so if you go on after twenty, comes thirty which isn't and then forty which is the answer. Its silly to type all this but I think this was the only important thing about the question.

[lekoman]

Well, it cannot be the ONLY number. If you consider that numbers count into infinity, by definition, any combination of letters from the English alphabet could represent a real number in the number line... and in fact, all combinations of letters from the English alphabet must represent a number in the number line... no? Perhaps you meant which is the closest to zero? ;)

[theoriginalwasa]

@lekoman the numbers count to infinity yes... but the naming convention repeats itself. This means that if you have the number ONE and it violates alphabetical order (or in general consider that the number N contradicts alphabetical order) then any order of magnitude thereafter that includes the number ONE (or N) will also contradict it. Therefore, ONE thousand is out, ONE million is out ETC and anything with these orders of magnitude.

[theoriginalwasa]

@lekoman

The only cases where this breaks down are for the tens orders of magnitude. Therefore all that is needed is an exhaustion of all numbers to 100, then metric naming conventions take over which repeat previous names. However, since not all orders of magnitude can be named in a finite list of words there must be numbers without a name.

[theoriginalwasa]

@lekoman

This means that whilst 40 is the only one below 100, forty thousand is out because of THOUSAND, forty million is out because of MILLION...etc...I will concede that because not all orders of magnitude have names in the unlikely case where an order of magnitude fits then this number will be ok and so will forty *enter magnitude* in the case where the order of magnitude be named something like YYYYZZ or something.

[lekoman]

@theoriginalwasa That is not an unlikely case, it is a certain case if we are forced to name all of the orders of magnitude. ;) Now, if it's restricted to "in English" (which I don't remember seeing when I read the description the first time) then I suppose we can leave out all of the non-named options.

[theoriginalwasa]

@lekoman its not certain you can set up an isomorphic rule with the letters to describe the order of the magnitude using more and more letters in place of numbers i.e. just making the words infinitely long in order to describe them... so for example you could set up a rule where 10^N is represented by a word that has the same number of digits as N with A representing 1 and so on.... this system is countable but still infinite.

[uudens]

what about pi?

it's spelt in backwards alphabetical order :)

[jacktheripperVII]

1 german spelling (eins)

[BaumannBiehl]

@jacktheripperVII 8 acht auch

[cloudftw93]

i, its an imaginery number :)

[PS3Dragon4087]

i already knew this

Forward: Forty

Backward: One

[mathwhiz3]

Forty

[zombiefeast7]

forty

[HaslamCorp]

Forty... I hate spelling in English. And, you've gone HD!

[TheAnonymousParadox]

FORTY

[eXcite8D]

Forty



[HolbytaTook]

i could only think of ace when I watched this (catching up, as it were) but that is a card, not a number. lol

[AscianWalker]

I don't think U is before R alphabetically lol.

[megapunch99]

i say forty

[mindzombie]

G and H come before I

[DocHackenbush]

My first thought was "O" for "0" :D

But okay, as I found out in the comments it's "Fawlty".

;-)

[needpants]

first also works but the answer is forty

[syth184]

curse my terrible spelling. I also thought it was spelled "fourty" though that's probably the point of this question.

Interesting story though, I sat for a few seconds and reasoned it couldn't possibly be higher than ninety, because thats when you get to "ONE hundred" etc. I also realised it couldn't be less than 10 because all of those numbers appear again in counting, then obviously it couldnt be any "teens", and in the end I came up with either "i" or "e".

[Alfalotter]

forty (I didn't want to be left out)

[EclecticSceptic]

I thought that forty people saying the word forty wasn't enough so....

forty

[TheKrazykool809]

forty only backwards number is one

[pll114]

forty

[HKJS1234]

Actually, forty is right. fourty is not a word

[AceTrowa1]

om my I hope your embarrassed I do

[fredrikba1]

lol, forty is spelled fourty, dumbasses xp

well... it cant be 20+, cus all of the letters from 20 and above starts with twenty, thirty, fourty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninty, etc..

well, we got 0, some say zero and some say o, so... I dont know...

[jaykay1053]

That was fun!

[pinoybogoy97]

forty

[jackhack51]

forty

[fcukalloftsu]

i thought of another one (ghost)

[fcukalloftsu]

fort

[Motanagason27Live]

hi can also be the word

[Skope111]

...WHAT?!

"HI" isn't a number!

[twilightlover4525]

FORTY!!!!

[Bella500000]

forty

[TheLexus81]

forty

[jaybomb159]

fourty

[shadowkid4ever]

without the ''u''

[MrStuckyJ]

forty i have known this since 2nd grade

[Nemesiss120]

Since im not from a town that has the English language as a mother language can some1 explain sorry for being a dumbass but i just dont get it!:(

[rotnakleugim]

he asks for a number wich if you spell out, will be in alfabetical order, for example, four does not apply because r is after u in the word but not in the alphabet. forty aplies because o goes after f in the alphabet t comes beforte o etc.

[Nemesiss120]

thank you :D

[superawsomevids]

40 its to obvious

[SvAbO666]

yay 40 got it ;)

[gC222SA]

sure you did

[KiranGlitch]

its 40 - forty

i spent a long time going through all the numbers up to forty!

[grande1899]

forty

[thamiks]

Forty.

[darkglory100]

ur dumb

[khep24]

Forty.

[TheMnesic]

Good thing you said "in english", otherwise one could just become american and drop in the old 0, pronounced O. Only one letter, hence in alphabetical order XD

[LegitimateLegenD]

I got forty, :P

[jimmyblaze1982]

very nice new camera, good picture!

[dave597]

its forty. too easy.

[manx5225]

oooo new camera....and 40

[FlloydOwnsAll]

Nice new camra I'll try this one later

[singingbanana]

Is no one going to admire the new camera?

[CheckDisOutpeeps]

singingbanana.. where do you buy cards from in the uk?

[esbarato154]

@singingbanana amazing sound and image my friend ;)

and pretty good videos too!

keep them coming :)

[illustriouschin]

@singingbanana It was a great editing trick but I can't hardly tell the difference.

[TH3GHOST2]

Forty???

[drummingsebber]

isnt it spelled "fourty"?

[TH3GHOST2]

not sure. i googled forty and it came up with the number 40 but i'm still not sure thats why i put ???

[Antihero0BTR]

No its spelled "Forty" :)

Despite being related to the word "four" (4), 40 is spelled "forty", not "fourty". This is because etymologically (and still in accents without the horse-hoarse merger), the words have different vowels, "forty" containing a contraction in the same way that "fifty" contains a contraction of "five". The letters of the word "forty" are in alphabetical order; this is the only number that has this linguistic property in English.

Straight from wiki :P

[croycasey]

hey this is math class. not english. jkz

[singingbanana]

Wins best comment.

[Antihero0BTR]

Hehe, thanks. Keep up the good work, your videos are great!

[MsRachelHalpin]

im retarded when it comes to math -.-;

but give me a paintbrush and a canvas and im good ;D

[MsRachelHalpin]

oh god i dont know! lol ^^;

[MaffiasAngelO88]

I got forty to, guess that's it?

[timar03]

im saying 845913276

[PolarBearMath]

i is after g+h :(

[freddygotfingered23]

forty

[TweetReece]

ninethousandninehundredandnine­tynineth!

[jirayut]

Forty. ^0^

[Moorich]

the answer is first lol. regular names for 0-20 arn't in abc order

[singingbanana]

I don't count 'first' as a number, but good idea.

[Moorich]

damn that first :( if I hadn't got that idea I would have probably found out that it's 40 :( shit :(

[chiliechilie]

forty

[comownage]

fourth!!

[Highrise24X]

eight?

[Worldsupport]

Second...

[funnymark26]

FIRST