2004 is an even, happy number
2004 is an even, happy number. It is a leap year. It will also be the year of the Monkey starting on January 22, 2004.
In a comment to Theresa Neilsen-Hayden's blog post, "Chrono log", Jonathan Vos Post notes the following:
About "2004" as an integer:2004 = 2 x 2 x 3 x 167
2004 is an EBAN NUMBER. Consider the number's English name: "Two Thousand Four." As Mathworld defines, The eban numbers are the sequence of numbers whose names (in English) do not contain the letter "e" (i.e., "e" is "banned"). The name was coined by N. J. A. Sloane around 1990. Note that this definition is imprecise insofar as special names are sometimes assigned to a few large numbers that do not follow the usual rules for the naming of such numbers.
The first few eban numbers are 2, 4, 6, 30, 32, 34, 36, 40, 42, 44, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56, 60, 62, 64, 66, 2000, 2002, 2004, ... (Sloane's A006933); i.e., two, four, six, thirty, etc. These exclude one, three, five, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, etc.
On New Year's Day morning, I sat in bed trying to figure out why 2003 sucked so bad. A suspicion started to niggle my brain, thus I did division in my head, hopped out of bed to get my calculator, and my suspicion was correct: 2003 was a prime number.
As a lady born on the 24th day of the 4th month on a Monkey leap year, I am especially fond of even integers, and not so fond of prime numbers above 11. Thus, 2003 was a bad year. ;o)
I am looking forward to 2004 - The Year of the Wood Monkey - being a darned fine year.
Roslynn Pryor said:
Speaking of prime numbers, have you read 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-time'? I found it lovely. It's written from the point of view of an autistic kid who tries to solve the mystery of a dog-murder of which he is initially accused. He's a math whiz, and he numbers his chapters by prime numbers because it makes sense to him that way. :-)