English Explanatory Dictionary

taxicab number

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The nth taxicab number, typically denoted Ta(n) or Taxicab(n), is the smallest number that can be expressed as a sum of two positive algebraic cubes in n distinct ways.

Word forms

taxicab number taxicab numbers

Etymology

From an anecdote of the mathematician G. H. Hardy, who went to visit Srinivasa Ramanujan in a taxicab number 1729. Hardy suggested that the number seemed unremarkable, whereupon Ramanujan identified it as having this mathematical property.

Synonyms

Ramanujan-Hardy number
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