2/19/2002

A site called The Secret Lives of Numbers examines the frequency and possible importance of numbers using custom software and examining the search engines. They then created a Java applet to visualize these patterns. Sounds terribly boring, right? Probably important though incomprehensible? Well, that’s true, but it is interesting. Click on the Visualization link after reading their brief introduction. Once the applet loads, pick a number between 1 and 1,000,000. 1492’s an obvious one. 90210 is another. Click on the number and then click on the button labelled “Get This Number’s Associations” to see all the things bearing that number.It’s well executed and yields some interesting findings: most of the numbers above 10,000 are only significant as ZIP codes and that there’s something on the Net that chronicles the top 219 MIDI sites. Go figure.