4 Explained

4 should not be confused with Cuatrillo.

Number:4
Numeral:quaternary
Divisor:1, 2, 4
Greek Prefix:tetra-
Latin Prefix:quadri-/quadr-
Lang1:Armenian
Lang1 Symbol:Ô´
Lang2:Arabic, Kurdish
Lang3:Persian, Sindhi
Lang4:Shahmukhi, Urdu
Lang5:Ge'ez
Lang6:Bengali, Assamese
Lang7:Chinese numeral
Lang7 Symbol:四,亖,肆
Lang9:Devanagari
Lang10:Santali
Lang11:Telugu
Lang12:Malayalam
Lang13:Tamil
Lang14:Hebrew
Lang15:Khmer
Lang16:Thai
Lang17:Kannada
Lang18:Burmese
Lang19:Babylonian numeral
Lang20:Egyptian hieroglyph, Chinese counting rod
Lang21:Maya numerals
Lang21 Symbol:••••
Lang22:Morse code

4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is a square number, the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures.

Evolution of the Hindu-Arabic digit

Brahmic numerals represented 1, 2, and 3 with as many lines. 4 was simplified by joining its four lines into a cross that looks like the modern plus sign.[1] The Shunga would add a horizontal line on top of the digit, and the Kshatrapa and Pallava evolved the digit to a point where the speed of writing was a secondary concern. The Arabs' 4 still had the early concept of the cross, but for the sake of efficiency, was made in one stroke by connecting the "western" end to the "northern" end; the "eastern" end was finished off with a curve. The Europeans dropped the finishing curve and gradually made the digit less cursive, ending up with a digit very close to the original Brahmin cross.[2]

While the shape of the character for the digit 4 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the glyph usually has a descender, as, for example, in .

On the seven-segment displays of pocket calculators and digital watches, as well as certain optical character recognition fonts, 4 is seen with an open top: .[3]

Television stations that operate on channel 4 have occasionally made use of another variation of the "open 4", with the open portion being on the side, rather than the top. This version resembles the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics letter ᔦ. The magnetic ink character recognition "CMC-7" font also uses this variety of "4".[4]

Mathematics

Lagrange's four-square theorem states that every positive integer can be written as the sum of at most four squares.[5] Four is one of four all-Harshad numbers. Each natural number divisible by 4 is a difference of squares of two natural numbers, i.e.

4x=y2-z2

.

A four-sided plane figure is a quadrilateral or quadrangle, sometimes also called a tetragon. It can be further classified as a rectangle or oblong, kite, rhombus, and square.

Four is the highest degree general polynomial equation for which there is a solution in radicals.[6]

Four is the only square number

N=n x n

where

N-1

is a prime number.

The four-color theorem states that a planar graph (or, equivalently, a flat map of two-dimensional regions such as countries) can be colored using four colors, so that adjacent vertices (or regions) are always different colors.[7] Three colors are not, in general, sufficient to guarantee this.[8] The largest planar complete graph has four vertices.[9]

A solid figure with four faces as well as four vertices is a tetrahedron, which is the smallest possible number of faces and vertices a polyhedron can have.[10] The regular tetrahedron, also called a 3-simplex, is the simplest Platonic solid.[11] It has four regular triangles as faces that are themselves at dual positions with the vertices of another tetrahedron.[12]

The smallest non-cyclic group has four elements; it is the Klein four-group.[13] A alternating groups are not simple for values

n

≤

4

.

There are four Hopf fibrations of hyperspheres:

\beginS^0 & \hookrightarrow S^1 \to S^1, \\S^1 & \hookrightarrow S^3 \to S^2, \\S^3 & \hookrightarrow S^7 \to S^4, \\S^7 & \hookrightarrow S^\to S^8. \\\end

They are defined as locally trivial fibrations that map

f:S2n-1 → Sn

for values of

n=2,4,8

(aside from the trivial fibration mapping between two points and a circle).[14]

In Knuth's up-arrow notation,

2+2=2 x 2=22=2\uparrow\uparrow2=2\uparrow\uparrow\uparrow2= ... =4

, and so forth, for any number of up arrows.[15]

There are four dimensions in the theory of Minkowski space, three of space and the one being time.

List of basic calculations

Division12345678910111213141516
4 ÷ x421.10.80.0.0.50.0.40.0.0.0.0.20.25
x ÷ 40.250.50.7511.251.51.7522.252.52.7533.253.53.754
Exponentiation12345678910111213141516
4425610244096163846553626214410485764194304167772166710886426843545610737418244294967296
x181256625129624014096656110000146412073628561384165062565536

In culture

In technology

References

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Heller, Steven. Graphic Design Rants and Raves Bon Mots on Persuasion, Entertainment, Education, Culture, and Practice. 9781621535393. January 3, 2017. Allworth Press.
  2. Book: Ifrah, Georges. The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer. David. Bellos. et al. London. The Harvill Press. 1998. 394, Fig. 24.64.
  3. Web site: 2019-04-22. Seven Segment Displays (7-Segment) Pinout, Types and Applications. 2020-07-28. Electronics Hub. en-US. 28 July 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200728014108/https://www.electronicshub.org/seven-segment-displays/. live.
  4. News: 2017-02-02. Battle of the MICR Fonts: Which Is Better, E13B or CMC7? - Digital Check. en-US. Digital Check. 2020-07-28. 3 August 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200803161254/https://www.digitalcheck.com/battle-micr-fonts-better-e13b-cmc7/. live.
  5. Book: Peterson, Ivars. Mathematical Treks: From Surreal Numbers to Magic Circles. 2002. MAA. 978-0-88385-537-9. 95. en. 7 is an example of an integer that can't be written as the sum of three squares..
  6. Book: Bajnok, Béla. An Invitation to Abstract Mathematics. 2013-05-13. Springer Science & Business Media. 978-1-4614-6636-9. en. There is no algebraic formula for the roots of the general polynomial of degrees 5 or higher..
  7. Book: Bunch, Bryan . The Kingdom of Infinite Number . New York . W. H. Freeman & Company . 2000 . 48.
  8. Book: Ben-Menahem, Ari. Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences. 2009-03-06. Springer Science & Business Media. 978-3-540-68831-0. 2147. en. (i.e. That there are maps for which three colors are not sufficient).
  9. Book: Molitierno, Jason J.. Applications of Combinatorial Matrix Theory to Laplacian Matrices of Graphs. 2016-04-19. CRC Press. 978-1-4398-6339-8. 197. en. ... The complete graph on the largest number of vertices that is planar is K4 and that a(K4) equals 4..
  10. Book: Grossnickle. Foster Earl. Discovering Meanings in Elementary School Mathematics. Reckzeh. John. 1968. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 337. 9780030676451. en. ...the smallest possible number of faces that a polyhedron may have is four.
  11. Book: Grossnickle. Foster Earl. Discovering Meanings in Elementary School Mathematics. Reckzeh. John. 1968. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 337. 9780030676451. en. ...face of the platonic solid. The simplest of these shapes is the tetrahedron....
  12. Book: Hilbert. David. Geometry and the Imagination. Cohn-Vossen . Stephan . 1999. American Mathematical Soc.. 978-0-8218-1998-2. 143. en. ...the tetrahedron plays an anomalous role in that it is self-dual, whereas the four remaining polyhedra are mutually dual in pairs....
  13. Book: Horne, Jeremy. Philosophical Perceptions on Logic and Order. 2017-05-19. IGI Global. 978-1-5225-2444-1. 299. en. The Klein four-group is the smallest noncyclic group,.... 31 October 2022. 31 October 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221031005437/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZfYoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA299. live.
  14. Book: Shokurov, A.V. . Michiel Hazewinkel . Michiel Hazewinkel . Hopf fibration . Encyclopedia of Mathematics . . Helsinki . https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Hopf_fibration . 2002 . 1402006098 . 1013220521 . 2023-04-30 . 1 May 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230501005558/https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Hopf_fibration . live .
  15. Book: Hodges, Andrew . One to Nine: The Inner Life of Numbers . 2008-05-17 . W. W. Norton & Company . 978-0-393-06863-4 . 249 . en . 2 ↑↑ ... ↑↑ 2 is always 4.
  16. Book: Bulletin - State Department of Education. 1955. Department of Education. 151. en. Four was a sacred number of Zia.
  17. Book: Lachenmeyer, Nathaniel. 13: The Story of the World's Most Notorious Superstition. 2005. Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated. 978-0-452-28496-8. 187. en. In Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, the word for four is, unfortunately, an exact homonym for death.