π * 1,337% = 42 (ish). (via Reddit)

  • DeargDoom

    I have heard of 1337 but what does 1337% mean?

    • Just_Ok

      it means they’re stretching 

    • Antinous / Moderator

      It’s the square root of 1,787,569. Jeez.

      • Paul Renault

        More importantly, it’s the πth root of six billion, six hundred and twenty-two million, five hundred and eighteen thousand, three hundred and ten point 42.

    • janeklb

      I had the same pondering.. this should clear it up for you:
      http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=13.37+*+pi

      • DeargDoom

        1337 has a meaning in popular culture. 1337% has no more meaning than 1437 .

        What I was trying to say is that while it would be very mildly amusing to find three numbers with pop cultural significance such that one of the numbers was the product of the other two, the effect is lost when you have to divide by 100.

        If you were to give me any three such numbers I could find a fourth which would generate the same “coincidence”.

  • http://twitter.com/globaljunkyard Austin Anderson

    The only thing dumber than leetspeak is doing arithmetic handstands with the number 1337 and calling it “math.”

    • EH

      Well, la de da.

    • Guest

      ahem, “maths”

      See, there is something dumber. 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QPO7ZTNVCETKHPFKPR7DWCSY2Q Anthony

    Here is a math coincidence for you. Actually, three of them!

  • stasike

    Yesterday I needed to find out temperature in degrees centigrade for -40Farenheit. It has something to do with Lead acid battery temperature limit.

    So I asked google, and it didn’t work It kept insisting that -40F=-40°C.
    I had to find out the equation, and I found out that -40F happens to be exactly -40°C – a nice coincidence.

    • neurolux

      Forty below zero is also the temperature mercury freezes. So when the temperature in Fahrenheit equals the temperature in Celsius, the thermometer self-destructs.

    • Shinkuhadoken

      The old joke is to say, “It’s minus 40 out.” And when the other person asks, “Is that in Fahrenheit or Celsius?” you just reply, “It doesn’t matter when it’s that cold.”

  • Christopher Burke

    Cool. Something I posted on reddit made it somewhere else. (Granted, I posted it a year ago, and I don’t know that I was the first, so it’s probably someone else being quoted, but still cool.)

  • rwmj

    … and in any case pi is the wrong thing.  Tau day!  http://tauday.com/

    • Patrick Gill

      Right on!

  • nixiebunny

    That beats e^(pi*i) = -1, which is a real math coincidence, to first appearances.

    • Tynam

      e^(iπ)+1=0 is the single most beautiful result in maths. But it’s not a coincidence; it’s fundamental. Glad someone mentioned it!

      • nixiebunny

        That’s why I said that it appears to be a coincidence. It isn’t really; something about Taylor series.

  • Guest

    Translation: Excellent pie is the meaning of life.

    Sounds accurate to me.

  • Thomas Furfaro

    I think you (and he in the original post) meant “1337% * pi”. But, same difference (or product, really).

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GNWUQHQBSSQ7KLWK6QC4E4IUZA Demerval

    I didn’t get it. Can someone please explain to a Portuguese-speaker Brazilian BoingBoing reader why π * 1,337% = 42 is relevant/fun/interesting?

    • http://orbitnet.com JIMWICh

      1,337 = lEEt (‘leet’ for “elite”)

      Pi you should get… (but it’s also a pun on delicious ‘pie’)

      42 = In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the number from which all meaning (“the meaning of life, the universe, and everything”) could be derived.

      There, all explained.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GNWUQHQBSSQ7KLWK6QC4E4IUZA Demerval

        Oh now I see, thanks!

    • http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

      Hey, even a lot of us English speakers did not get it either.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_D55WI4DCGD37XCUHNBH7IVC5HQ Hollow

        It’s the answer to life the universe and everything. Read Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!!!  Ford Prefect Rocks

      • Guest

        Yeah, but that’s totally your own fault. 

  • Ambiguity

    The answer may have been 42, but most people forget the question was “what’s six by nine.”

    The truth of the theorem can be easily shown computationally. Here is a simple program to do so:

    #include
    #define SIX 1 + 5
    #define NINE 8 + 1
    void main()
    {
    printf( “The answer to all: %dn”, SIX * NINE );
    }

    • http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose

       Hah! I see what you did there! ;)

  • sean

    Huh?

  • Matthew Share

    i speak English, i’m just not fluent in Math…just pigeon there

  • Doug Black

    Still my fave: 

    Bender: Hey robot, what’s your serial number?
    Flexo: 3370318.
    Bender: No way, mine’s 2716057!
    (robot laughter)
    Fry: I don’t get it.
    Bender: We’re both expressible as the sum of two cubes!

  • Craig Stenseth

    OCT 31 = DEC 25.

    • Guest

      Imagine a story where those two got mixed up. A real nightmare. 

  • Aknaton

    e^3 = 20
    log_10(x) + log_e(x) = log_2(x)
    I was going to say exp(pi sqrt(173)), but Googling that led me straight to
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_coincidence

  • awjt

    OK.  You know what?  It’s really not that funny.

  • Ben Vost

    anagrammatical maths coincidence: eleven+two is the same as twelve+one.