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Hey, I'm Chad, I'm Ron. I'm Robert Trilwich. This is Radio Lab. And is... This. Like this? This is Alex Bellows. Okay. He's a writer. He's written a lot about sports, particularly about Brazilian soccer, but also math. Or he likes to say maths. And when I wrote my first math book,

Here's Looking at Euclid, I went and gave loads of talks. And at the end of the talk, there'd always be someone who would put their hand up and they'd say, what's your favorite number? And this used to just irritate me because I myself don't have a favorite number. You don't have a favorite number? No, I think it's stupid.

But no, that's correct. I did think it was stupid. I just didn't have one. Okay. And why would the question annoy him? Seems to me it's the most normal question you could ask. Well, but remember, this is, remember, this is, he's talking about a math book to math enthusiast. What's your favorite number? It's like sort of a, it's like, it's too silly,

or maybe it's like they're making fun of him.

I got so infrerated that one, book to math enthusiasts. What's your favorite number? It's like, it's too silly.

Or maybe it's like they're making fun of them? I got so infuriated that once, I think I was a bit tired. It was like, I don't know where the gig was. And I just said, what's your favorite number? Just turning it back at the person in the audience. And they said, oh, 12. And I was shocked and said, You weren't asking me because you were kind of taking piss out of the math, Mo.

You actually really wanted to know because you wanted to share your own favourite number. And he's like, oh yeah. And then the person sitting next to them were like, oh yeah, like mine's eight. And then mine's seven. And I thought, this is interesting. And I can remember asking the audience and said, well, who here has got a favorite number? And at least half the people put their hands up. And in a way that you go from being a smoker, and when you stop smoking to be like a rabid anti-smoker, I went from being, you know, favorite number agnostic to being obsessed with favorite numbers he started a website

favorite number dot net you know just asking people the question and I put it

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