Next number, please.
Next number, pleaseWhat's the next whole number in this sequence: 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, 22, 29?
The answer can be found in one of more than 5,000 entries in the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (Academic Press, 1995), a unique mathematical catalog compiled by Neil J.A. Sloane of AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., and Simon Plouffe of the University of Quebec in Montreal.
Starting with "the zero sequence," which consists of an infinite string of zeros, each entry in this catalog gives the first dozen or more numbers of a particular sequence, the sequence's name, a mathematical description or formula showing how to obtain successive terms, and citations indicating where the sequence has come up in the mathematical or scientific literature.
Sloane has been collecting integer sequences since 1965, when he was a graduate student at Cornell University. Within a decade, he had enough material to publish an annotated list of 2,372 sequences in A Handbook of Integer Sequences (Academic Press, 1973). This volume became a standard reference for mathematicians and many others interested in numbers in a wide variety of contexts, from studies of knots to research on RNA sequences.
Sloane also has an on-line version of his new sequence encyclopedia. By sending a message such as "lookup 5 14 42 132" to the electronic mail address sequences@research.att.com, a user can find out whether this or any other sequence is in the table.
Since completing the encyclopedia, Sloane has added more than 500 new sequences to his collection. About 250 of these entries have come from R.G.Kunstleve, a crystallographer in Zurich who has been enumerating sequences that arise in studying the number of atoms in various solids.
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| Title Annotation: | the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, compiled by Neil J. A. Sloane and Simon Plouffe |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Science News |
| Article Type: | Brief Article |
| Date: | May 20, 1995 |
| Words: | 291 |
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