Math

Mathematicians’ Phone Passcodes

Posted by Dave Richeson on

A character in a novel I was reading used the passcode 1729 for his house’s security system. He did so because of the famous Hardy-Ramanujan anecdote about the number. That got me to thinking. What would mathematicians of the past have used for their passcodes? I tweeted some ideas and got some great responses with additional suggestions.

Here’s my list with some other additions. I’ve linked to biographies of the individuals and linked to the reasons why I chose the number that I did.