The dull number 1729 and Futurama

Yesterday the BBC published a curious article “Why is the number 1729 hidden in Futurama episodes?”. It is written by Simon Singh whose popular books about mathematics and science have been hugely successful. Some of them were made in very interesting documentaries like “Fermat’s Last Theorem” and “The Science of Secrecy”. His latest book is “The Simpsons and their mathematical secrets” 🙂

Some more information about the appearances of this “dull” number in Futurama are collected by its fans here.

Mathematicians, not surprisingly, are interested in numbers, and find curious properties in them – here is a short summary of  what they find remarkable about this “taxicab” number from Wolfram Mathworld. And here is another take at 1729 from an excellent (and very “ancient” site, do browse around it :-)).
If you find some of this appealing you might even choose to reflect what makes a number worth of interest in your exploration.