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One was Berry’s paradox, first suggested to Russell by G. G. Berry, a librarian at the Bodleian. It has to do with counting the syllables needed to specify each integer. Generally, of course, the larger the number the more syllables are required. In English, the smallest integer requiring two syllables is seven. The smallest requiring three syllables is eleven. The number 121 seems to require six syllables (“one hundred twenty-one”), but actually four will do the job, with some cleverness: “eleven squared.” Still, even with cleverness, there are only a finite number of possible syllables and ...more
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
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