Taxicab Number and Interesting Aspects

Presented by Kangkeun Rhee March 13th, 2010 at Pepperdine University

Presentation Outline
Two mathematicians to introduce
The story behind Taxicab Numbers What is a Taxicab Number?

So-far discovered Taxicab Numbers

Aspects about Taxicab Numbers Cabtaxi Numbers and Information

Two Mathematicians to introduce

Ramanujan (12/22/1887 to 04/26/1920)
- Highly celebrated mathematician in India, and self-taught genius with no training in pure mathematics. Mostly seen in number theory, series, and functions

G. H. Hardy (02/07/1887 to 12/01/1947)

- Number theory without Hardy is like a car without an engine. -"If I could prove by logic that you would die in five minutes, I should be sorry you were going to die, but my sorrow would be very much mitigated by pleasure in the proof"

One Story Behind Taxicab Number

Taxicab with a number of 1729.
- I looked at this number and apparently, I have not seen anything interesting, says Hardy. - Actually it is an interesting number BECAUSE it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two positive cubes in two different ways, says Ramanujan.

So what exactly is a Taxicab Number?

In mathematics, the nth taxicab number, generally denoted as Ta(n) or Taxicab(n), is the smallest number that can be expressed as a sum of two positive cubes in n distinct ways.
So far 6 Taxicab numbers are discovered. Taxicab number 7 has not been discovered yet as of now. The last Taxicab Number was discovered just two years ago by Hollerbach.

Ramanujan

G. H. Hardy

Discovered Taxicab Numbers

2 discovered by Hardy and Ramanujan, called Hardy-Ramanujan Number 3 discovered by John Leech in 1957, 4 discovered by Rosenstiel in 1993 5 discovered by Dardis 1994, confirmed by David Wilson in 1999 6 announced by Hollerbach, March 8, 2008, following the work done by Calude in 2003

Interesting Aspects of Taxicab Numbers

Unfortunately, Hardy and Ramanujan are not the first publishers of 1729. Bernard Bessy is the first publisher. (1657) It is quite clear that most of the Taxicab numbers are discovered in the last century. One thing to note is that Ta(4), Ta(5), and Ta(6) were discovered in the last few decades. - Advancement in technology such as calculators and computers Even with technology, Taxicab number is hard to discover. Although it is proven that the nth Taxicab number exists (Proven by Hardy and Wright), the proof is no use in finding the number.

There is also a Cabtaxi Number

What is a Cabtaxi Number?

- Cabtaxi number is the smallest positive number that can be written in n ways as a sum of two (does not have to be positive cubes, cubes can also be negative) cubes.
- The name is derived from the Taxicab Number (Explained above)

Why cant I be Either one?

Cabtaxi Number (1)

Cabtaxi Number (2)

Cabtaxi Number (3)

Information about Cabtaxi No.

Cabtaxi number 5, 6, 7 were found by Randall Rathburn. Cabtaxi number 8 was discovered by Daniel Bernstein.

Cabtaxi 9, following the method from Daniel Bernstein, was discovered by Duncan Moore
Christian Boyer, four years ago, reported Cabtaxi 10 to be an upper bound and Hollerbach later verified to be Cabtaxi 10 in 2008.

Personal Acknowledgements
Dr. Brian Fisher of Pepperdine University

Dr. Kendra Killpatrick of Pepperdine University

People who attended the Tuesday Tea Talk on February 16th Pacific Coast Math Conference