Hardy used to visit [Ramanujan], as he lay dying in hospital at Putney. It was on one of those visits that there happened the incident of the taxi-cab number. Hardy had gone out to Putney by taxi, as usual his chosen method of conveyance. He went into the room where Ramanujan was lying. Hardy, always inept about introducing a conversation, said, probably without a greeting, and certainly as his first remark: 'I thought the number of my taxi-cab was 1729. It seemed to me rather a dull number.' To which Ramanujan replied: 'No, Hardy! No, Hardy! It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.'
(from C. P. Snow's foreword to G. H. Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology")
watchytyyy put a duplicate number (same mistake I did last night) and now ZooNinja has followed on do I put 1716 or 1717 which is where I think we are supposed be up to, or 1721 to get back in sync with the thread count. Am I over thinking this bit of fluff and nonsense?
