The top 10 greatest numbers of all time.
10: Avagadro’s Number
Avagadro’s number is the number of units in one mole of any substance, and a mole is that substance’s molecular weight in grams. It is equal to approximately 6.022 x 10^23. This number is extremely useful in the field of chemistry, as it allows chemists to represent incomprehensibly small masses with simple numbers. Essentially, this number is crucial to maintaining chemistry.
9: Golden Ratio
The golden ratio is a number equivalent to 
8: Speed of Light
The speed of light is the upper limit at which information (including matter and energy) can travel in the universe, coming in at a whopping 299,792,458 m/s. The speed of light is crucial in special relativity, developed by Albert Einstein in the early 20th century. Using this constant, Einstein was able to discover the complex nature of space and time, in which space can be contracted and time can be dilated at speeds close to the speed of light. Ultimately, this light has revolutionized physics and is one of the most important constants in the universe.
7: Gravitational Constant
The gravitational constant is the empirical physical constant that is involved in the calcuation of classical gravitational effects, equivalent to about 6.6743 × 10^-11 m3 kg^-1 s^-2. It connects the gravitational force between two bodies with the product of their masses and the inverse of the square of their distance, represented by the equation:
It is crucial to the function of classical mechanics and Newton’s laws of gravitation.
6: Boltzmann’s constant
Boltzmann’s constant is the proportionality factor that relates the average relative kinetic energy of particles in a gas with the thermodynamic temperature of the gas, equivalent to about 1.380649×10^-23 joule/kelvin. This number occurs in the definition of kelvin and the gas constant, help defines Planck’s law of blackbody radiation, is part of Boltzmann’s entropy formula, and is used for calcluating thermal noise in resistors. Overall, this constant is crucial to many concept in physics, and for that reason places high on this list.
5: i
The imaginary unit i is one of the most important and revolutionary concepts in mathematics. It represents the solution to the quadratic x^2 + 1 = 0, the square root of -1. i only exists in a group of numbers beyond the real numbers, that being the complex numbers. These numbers can be represented by expanding the real number line into a plane containing the real numbers on a horizontal axis on the complex numbers on the vertical axis. 
The solution to any cubic function requires complex numbers. Along with this, this imaginary unit has applications all over mathematics. It is essential to algebraic number theory, analytic number theory, linear algebra, and many other mathematical disciplines. It is used to analyze varying voltages and currents through the fourier transform, and is an important component of quantum mechanics through hilbert spaces, the schrodinger equation, matrix mechanics, and quantum field theory. Overall, the imaginary unit i is at the foundation of modern mathematics and physics, and it continuously resists our lack of comprehension by adding new and dominating applications throughout science. A world without i is simply not imaginable.
4: e
Euler’s number e, approximately equal to 2.718, is the base of the natural logarithm, and can be calculated as the sum of the infinite series 
3: Pi
Pi (π) is the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159. Pi as a concept has been around for thousands of years, and early estimates like 22/7 were common across the ancient world. Pi is essential to the fields of geometry and trigonometry: Pi is used to find the circumference of a circle, the area of a circle, the volume of a sphere, the surface area of a sphere, and countless other geometrical properties. Pi is usedto measure angles in terms of radians, and trigonometric functions are defined in terms of periods that are multiples of pi. Pi also describes physical phenomena that many of us are familiar with from physics, such as the period T of a pendulum being:
To state other applications, pi is associated with eigenvalues, inequalities such as the isoperimetric inequality and the sobolev inequality, the fourier transform, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, gaussian integrals, topology, vector calculus, and many other fields of mathematics.
2: 0
Zero is the additive identity for integers, real numbers, and many other algebraic structures. Despite its seeming simplicity in the modern world, zero is a relatively new concept in the history of mathematics, not even gaining a symbol in europe until the 12th century. The first appearances of the concept of zero came from Mesopotamia, in which spaces were used to designate the absence of a number. In the 7th century, Indian mathemticians first began to fully grasp the modern concept of 0 as the additive identity. The concept of the 0, a number representing “nothing,” became mainstream in Europe in the beginning of the last millennium, and is now a crucial aspect of mathemtacis, a basic building block for all of modern math.
Honorable Mentions:
69
Nice.
420
Life is good.
6.62607015 × 10^-34 m^2 kg / s. It is small.
1: 1
Number 1. It is the first integer after 0, and is the multiplicative identity. It represents the smallest distance between two distinct natural numbers. 1 acts like the center of numbers. It is its own factorial, and 1 taken to any power is itself. It is neither composite nor prime, but instead is considered the unit, an essential concept in ring theory. 1 also commonly denotes the leading item in a list, and will do the same in this one. Number 1 is number 1. Life would never be the same without you, babe.
Hi Mathew! Well first, I want to comment on your blog overall. I really enjoy all of the color schemes, and the name of the blog especially. However, I have the greatest appreciation for the tagline, I am just figuring out the blog along with the rest of everyone. I think that that is really unique but also conveys your personality and humility very well. In terms of this blog itself, I think it was very interesting, and something that I had never given much thought to. I think you do a great job of explaining the significance of each number, instead of merely listing out what you believe the top ten are. Next, I think the amount of hyperlinks that you included shows the tremendous research that went into this idea and honestly makes your arguments more credible. Also, I would say that your list made me truly believe what you were arguing for. I could genuinely see why the number one should be number one overall – beyond just because it is a one. Finally, I love how you use your own voice and ideas and it is not very robotic, especially with the honorable mentions. Great work!
I enjoyed reading your blog I wasnt expecting anyone to type about the top 10 numbers, but I liked it and I enjoyed learning new numbers because I didn’t know about the golden ratio and the Avagadro’s Number so those two are the new numbers I learned today from your blog so thank you for that, and I thought I would see the number 7 in there since it’s the most favorite number in the world, and its a universal lucky number And I know that because I saw an article about it and it said: “A survey launched by a British mathematics writer has found that seven is the world’s favorite number, reports The Guardian. The results of the online survey were published on Tuesday, with three, eight, and four coming second, third and fourth.” https://time.com/55279/world-favorite-number-alex-bellos/
But The number 7 wasn’t there, unfortunately, but at least, Pi is there because it’s one of my favorite numbers too and I tried to memorize it, and Pi is an important number because people use it in so many equations, and it’s very useful so it’s a good thing that its 3rd place because it’s used around the world and it’s used in a lot of algebra equations.
Madler, you do not know how happy I am reading this blog. IT’S ABOUT NUMBERS, YAY! I like how you incorporated numbers from all different fields. So here are my thoughts on all of them.
Avogadro’s Number: As a student of AP CheMISTRY, I must approve that this number causes quite a positive reaction in my mind, to be specific, a redox reaction.
Golden Ratio: I cannot speak more about this number. As one of the solutions to x^2 – x – 1 = 0, it’s very cool to notice that the polynomial has only 1s coefficients and constants.
Speed of Light: e = mc^2, a fascinating application of this number. Now, when combining anti-matter and matter, how much energy as light is released?
Gravitational Constant: When taking physics, I started using 9.8 as the g value, but then learning that there was a G value, my mind was grounded. I gravitated towards that number more than I did to 9.8.
Boltzmann’s Constant: I, unfortunately, didn’t get to use that number anywhere, but it is still a very COOL number nonetheless.
i: The imaginary number was so cool when we first talked about it, and its applications can be used as far as your imagination goes. Like how it can be looped when taking powers of it, just like how sine and cosine loop when taking derivatives of it. (Hint for Chapter 8 of Calculus BC ;D)
e: I saw that you wrote a series for this number, but there is an application for this. The series for e^x is a summation from 0 to infinity of x^n/(n!). This may be useful, again in Chapter 8, but for now, just think about what the derivative of e^x is.
Pi: A useful number for all circular stuff. Just like how sin and cos make a circle when taking derivatives…
0: The balance of all negatives and positives, it’s very interesting when looking at the properties of 0 and calculus. When you divide by 0 when not using limits, you just don’t get an answer, but with the power of calculus, the unsolvability of this gets zeroed out.
1: Some more cool properties come with the number 1, as I am sure you know, that is why you have it ranked number 1. The identity property of multiplication for example; any number multiplied by 1 gets itself. This may seem obvious in third grade, but when multiplying my sneaky 1s, like a/a or conjugates, the answer may reveal itself faster than a clock can tick past one second.
Basically, one of the best rankings I’ve seen on numbers so far. I hope you keep enjoying these concepts of numbers. I’ll stop gushing now. (POGGERS MATH)
Hey Matthew! This is actually an incredible idea for a blog post; I almost regret not thinking of it myself, despite most of the numbers on this list having contributed significantly to the deterioration of my mental health (oops)
I don’t have many significant objections (after all, I decided in elementary school that my favorite number would be 287.5 with absolutely no way to defend it), however, I would like to protest e being ranked below pi. The ratio of circumference to diameter yada yada, pi is so overhyped. With literally nothing to its name other than some trig applications that make their way into physics and obscure math, I need to know what motivated you to pass up the wonderful e that, as you mentioned in your post is literally the derivative and integral of itself, and has applications everywhere (exponential growth? Pe^rt? That’s some crazy stuff.)
All this aside though, I really enjoyed reading your evaluation of each number you decided to add to your list– you have a really natural narrative voice, especially when it has to do with science or math– and I can tell you’re really passionate about STEM. I also appreciated the assorted quips and humorous asides you added in; they made what could have potentially be a very dry ranking something that was entertaining. Awesome job, I’ll definitely be back next week!
I was hoping Aarav read this post 🙂