#46

What number comes next in the sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66?

A) 96
B) 1000000000000000000000000000000000\
0000000000000000000000000000000000\
000000000000000000000000000000000
C) Either of the above
D) None of the above

Answer:

This can be looked up and found to be sequence A052196 http://www.research.att.com/cgi-bin/access.cgi/as/njas/sequences/eisA.cgi?Anum=A052196 in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, which gives the largest positive integer whose English name has n letters. For example, the first few terms are ten, nine, sixty, ninety, seventy, sixty-six, ninety-six A more correct sequence might be ten, nine, sixty, googol, seventy, sixty-six, ninety-six, googolplex. And also note, incidentally, that the correct spelling of the mathematical term "googol" http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Googol.html differs from the name. The first few can be computed using the NumberName function in Eric Weisstein's MathWorld packages http://mathworld.wolfram.com/packages/