iRadar: 10 Really Pointless Sites To Have Fun With Numbers

Friday, August 05, 2011

10 Really Pointless Sites To Have Fun With Numbers

10 Really Pointless Sites To Have Fun With Numbers: "

pointless sites The other day someone asked what they could do on the Internet other than Facebook or blogging. Well, as someone else put it quite bluntly, what can’t you do? However, the key question is, what is the best thing you can do? And while you’re busy figuring that out, how about killing some time?

Below is a list of ten really pointless sites that all deal with numbers in one way or another. All these pages were taken from the Pointless Numbers sub-category of PointlessSites, a website dedicated to pointless websites. Some pages are not exactly pointless, yet entertaining and fun in a pointless way.

PIN Numbers Revealed

This page reveals everyone’s Personal Identification Numbers. All PIN numbers you are using, whether they are for a credit or debit card or your mobile phone, all of them are visible to the public. Shocking!

Cryptarithms

Cryptarithms are number puzzles based on the principle of replacing digits with symbols, for example letters of the alphabet. The rules are that (1) each letter represents a unique digit, (2) numbers must not start with zero, and (3) the solution is unique, unless otherwise stated. The goal is – of course – to solve the puzzle and find out which digits are hidden behind the symbols in the puzzle.

number game

The Gematriculator

According to Wikipedia, Gematria is a system of assigning a numerical value to a word or phrase. In the 19th century, the mathematician Ivan Panin discovered that the vocabulary in the Greek New Testament had an underlying mathematical structure. Panin postulated that the mathematical patterns in the vocabulary was a sign of divine inspiration. The Gematriculator uses the method of Gematria developed by Ivan Panin to determine how good or evil a website or text passage is. Fortunately, MakeUseOf appears to be more good than bad.

pointless calculation

Binary

Ever wondered how your name is spelled in binary? Here is a tool that will translate it for you or any other text you enter. The binary numbers are arranged in sets of 8 bits (1 byte), which allows them to represent 256 values. The values are then mapped to characters in an ASCII chart to encode text.

encode in binary

They say it’s not magic, it’s just math!

Pi to one MILLION decimal places

This website shows the number Pi to one million decimal places. You have to see it!

Number Gossip

Number Gossip will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about any number you decide to enter. Well, almost any number because most of the large numbers are not covered. The gossip mostly covers the unique mathematical properties of a number.

number gossip

The MegaPenny Project

What do you know about the penny? In their MegaPenny Project, Kokogiak Media introduces the measurements of a penny and adds up the numbers as they stack up more and more of them. From one penny, they go to sixteen, to one thousand, to fifty thousand, and so on. Every stage in the project is accompanied by a picture of stacked up pennies. As the numbers start to get out of control, the pennies are put in relation to the size of familiar objects, like a a football field or the Empire State Building.

number gossip

This project may seem ridiculous, but it is not exactly pointless. The point is to visualize large numbers with a small everyday item, i.e. the U.S. penny.

Dice Simulator

Ever needed to roll a dice, but didn’t have one? If you’re smart you can program a quick random number generator or you could just use the Dice Simulator. It supports up to 6 dice and also has some background information on dice and random numbers.

dice simulator

Book Of Numbers

This page is so pointless, I haven’t figured out what it’s about. However, it’s quite entertaining. Just flip through the pages and watch the animations.

book of numbers