In this blog I intend to post a list of facts associated with each of the natural numbers from 1 to 10,000. The aim is to transfer the material to a dedicated website which will provide a permanent showcase for them. The facts were first posted online by contributors to the QI Forums' New Number Fact Game thread, which started in 2009. As of 6 August 2023, the thread stands at 9469 and I expect it to hit 10,000 some time in early 2024, though it continues indefinitely.
The purpose of this blog is to allow the authors and other interested people to comment on the information, correct any errors, provide sources if they haven't been given, and raise any objections to my editing. It is not intended as the final home for the project.
For the avoidance of doubt, this site and all of its contents are completely unconnected with Quite Interesting Limited, who are the owners of the QI Forums. This site is not sponsored, associated, approved, endorsed nor in any way affiliated with Quite Interesting Limited.
A few administrative matters:
Copyright: In all cases copyright lies with the original author of the post, who is identified by his or her screen name. I have attempted to contact all the authors to get their permission but this has not always been possible. I am grateful to those authors who have already given their permission. If any author actively chooses to withhold their material then it will be withdrawn and an editorial replacement will be provided. Otherwise material is included on a provisional basis, until such time as I am able to contact the author.
Order of presentation: The entries from 1-9000 are being posted in blocks of 100, running in reverse order (i.e. 8901-9000, 8801-8900, ..., 1-100). This allows the entries to appear in numerical sequence, since the latest post appears first. The entries from 9001 onwards are being posted in a separate blog here, since it wasn't possible to accommodate them in the original blog format without breaking the sequence.
Selections: As I go along, I've been making a selection of the 1000 most interesting or unusual facts (and there may possibly be a top 100 as well). Obviously there's an element of subjectivity to this and I'm particularly interested in other people's comments. I've taken roughly 100 facts from each 1000 and posted them on a third blog here, although the full "pick of the 9000s" will obviously have to wait until the end.
Format: In order to standardize the variety of formats used by the different authors, each entry is introduced by the "key" number in bold, including a link to the source if one was provided. The QI Forums screen name of the author is given in brackets at the end of the entry. I have tried as far as possible to preserve the author's original wording but a small amount of editing has been necessary here and there. Some entries have been edited for length.
Duplicate entries: This list includes one fact per number. In some cases the original thread has more than one fact for a number, either because of accidental cross-posting or because the author decided to provide additional facts. In those cases I have used my discretion to choose the one I consider most interesting.
Absent or unsuitable entries: A small number of entries are absent because they were withdrawn by the original poster. Also, a small number of entries have been omitted as unsuitable. This may be for a number of reasons, including the following:
- the information is relative to the date of posting (e.g. "Stanley Matthews died 8292 days ago today") or to the poster's location (e.g. "I'm sitting 8625 km away from Steinhausen, Namibia");
- the information is out of date or unverifiable;
- the post was clearly intended as a joke or a facetious comment.
Thousands separators: There are a number of different conventions used by the various authors for indicating the thousands in four-digit numbers (other than serial numbers or year numbers, which never use a thousands separator). There is no ideal solution to this, but I have adopted the following approach:
- for consistency, no thousands separator in the "key" number;
- where the number appears in the text, include a comma if the author included one, but not otherwise;
- never use spaces in numbers as they can lead to confusion.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to all the contributors to the New Number Fact Game, and to Quite Interesting Ltd for making it possible. I have been a contributor myself for ten years now, and find it to be a most rewarding and absorbing pastime. I hope that readers will find it as interesting as I have.
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