Difference between revisions of "two"

Latest revision as of 11:57, 8 September 2009

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two (2) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the natural number following one and preceding three.

In mathematics[edit]

Two has many properties in mathematics. An integer is called even if it is divisible by 2. For integers written in a numeral system based on an even number, such as decimal and hexadecimal, divisibility by 2 is easily tested by merely looking at the one's place digit. If it's even, then the whole number is even.

Two is the smallest and the first prime number, and the only even one. The next prime is three. 2 is the first Sophie Germain prime, the first factorial prime, the first Lucas prime, and the first Smarandache-Wellin prime. It is an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form <math>3n - 1</math>. It is also a Stern prime, a Pell number, and a Markov number, appearing in infinitely many solutions to the Markov Diophantine equation involving odd-indexed Pell numbers.

Two is the third Fibonacci number, being the sum of the first two, 1 and 1.

Despite being a prime, two is also a highly composite number, because it has more divisors than one. The next highly composite number is four.

Two is a factor of ten, so vulgar fractions with 2 in the denominator do not yield infinite decimal expansions, as is the case with most primes.

Two is the base of the simplest numeral system in which natural numbers can be written concisely, the binary system widely used in computers.