Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Simon Singh's Numbers

Simon Singh takes a quirky look at some of the most important numbers in mathematics.

Radio 4,15 episodes

Episodes

ListGrid

A Further Five Numbers
1729 - The first taxicab number
1729 is the smallest number you can write as the sum of two cubes, in two different ways.
20 Sep 2005,14 mins
A Further Five Numbers
G - The number that defines the universe
Newton's equation of gravity includes a number G, indicating the strength of gravitation.
13 Sep 2005,14 mins
A Further Five Numbers
Six degrees of separation
Six is often treated as 2x3, but has many characteristics of its own.
06 Sep 2005,14 mins
A Further Five Numbers
Two - At the double
Doubling is a form of exponential growth, which appears in population growth and inflation
30 Aug 2005,14 mins
A Further Five Numbers
One - The most popular number
One is the most popular number, as it appears more often than any other number.
23 Aug 2005,14 mins
Another Five Numbers
Game Theory
When 3G phone licences were sold, game theory was used to boost proceeds for the Treasury.
31 Oct 2003,14 mins
Another Five Numbers
Kepler's Conjecture
Is the 'face-centred cubic lattice' the most efficient way of stacking spheres?
30 Oct 2003,14 mins
Another Five Numbers
The Largest Prime
Can large prime numbers be used to form the basis of more secure encryption codes?
29 Oct 2003,14 mins
Another Five Numbers
The Number Seven
Are 7 shuffles sufficient to achieve a good degree of randomness in a deck of 52 cards?
28 Oct 2003,14 mins
Another Five Numbers
The Number Four
Are 4 colours enough to paint any map, so neighbouring countries have different colours?
27 Oct 2003,14 mins
Five Numbers
Infinity
Georg Cantor defined infinity as the size of the never-ending list of counting numbers.
15 Mar 2002,14 mins
Five Numbers
The Imaginary Number
If the square root of +1 is both +1 and -1, then what is the square root of -1?
14 Mar 2002,14 mins
Five Numbers
The Golden Ratio
The ratio of consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci is close to 1.618, the Golden Ratio.
13 Mar 2002,14 mins
Five Numbers
Pi
At its simplest, Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
12 Mar 2002,14 mins
Five Numbers
Zero
Strangely, 'nothing' had to be invented, and then it took thousands of years to catch on.
11 Mar 2002,14 mins