3137: Cursed Number

Cursed Number

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Title text: Another group of mathematicians is working to put an upper bound on the number, although everyone keeps begging them to stop.

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was created in a CURSED YEAR. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

In the universe of this comic there exists some number that, through unknown means, is extremely harmful to the human mind to read it. Dangerous pieces of writing like this are a fairly common trope in speculative fiction, such as the Necronomicon in the Cthulhu Mythos or "memetic cognitohazards" in the SCP Foundation.

Naturally, the mathematics of this world are doing their best keeping this number away from as many human eyeballs as possible, in the interest of public safety. Through some process they have figured out the number is at least 22 digits long; because numbers this large (greater that a sextillion) are extremely unlikely to be found in the day to day lives of non-mathematicians, the public officials have deemed it safe for people to go about their daily lives reading numbers again.

In the title text another group of mathematicians are trying to narrow down the number's identity even further. The more attributes of the cursed number the mathematicians identify, the easier it is for anyone with morbid curiosity or researching more attributes of the number to discover the number themselves and get their mind damaged. This includes the researchers themselves, as they are now willingly going above the lower safe limit, greatly increasing their chances of seeing it accidentally. Furthermore, the cursed number may appear as part of another number; for example, 223 appears as part of 2237.

Transcript

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Discussion

Warning! Do not read! 421827639108237885847650045004 --Darth Vader (talk) 22:00, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Oh no, too late! bdbdbalasdfsdfoiubtasdf Barmar (talk) 22:35, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Well, at least you knew that reading the string "bdbdbalasdfsdfoiubtasdf" was the only antidote! 92.17.62.87 23:35, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Maybe it's safe if you read it scientifically? ~4.218276391088547650045x10²⁹?--DollarStoreBa'al^converse 23:43, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Edit: NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 23:44, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

isn't it just 854327335721902̷̨̧͉̼̲̒͛́̏͑̃͊͗̃̈́̎́̕͝4̷̝͉̹̜̘͎͕̬̞͔̣̠̘̆̒̅̂̈̾͆̂̎̓̽̒͂͆̚5̴͈̬̙̂̈́̈͊́͝2̸̡͈̘̼̼͇̙̣͎͚̀̆̃͆̉̍͋̉͘̕͜͝8̴̨͔̣̍̆̇̍̓̾̿͛͋̀̈̈́͠͝7̴̢̧̟̘̠͙̮̘͕͕͈̹̆͌̀̋̋̔͜͠5̷̟̼͉̯̹̜̬̜̦͕̭̺͙́̈̅͒̑̏̏͑̔̍̌͘͝͠͝ͅͅ6̵̟͔̦͙̘̞̙̫͈̩̠̰̎͒̒̒̌͌̽̑̓̚3̷̢͈͕͚̦̰͇̳̥̂̂͒̔́̈́̈́̾̅̌̚2̸̧̦͔͔͕̞̝͍̼̳̪̎͌̈̈́́͌̃͛̕͠9̷̢̟̖̦̭͕̬̜̝̼͖̋̀̂̆̌͐0̷̛̺̭̹̰͌́̑̕1̶̛̛͓̜̦̻̰̪͓̱̝̫͎͍̲̾͌̀̐̍̒̍͌̇͂͑? 37.40.140.119 (talk) 15:43, 10 October 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Not pictured - an MTF team breaking into the compound and abducting the original authors while clean-up arrives with amnestics. -- Xurkitree10 (talk) 10:25, 4 September 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

An MtF team wielding Blahaj and Monster Energy, breaking into the compound and abducting the transphobic authors 2601:19B:4287:6680:FD8B:1D14:2B2:50F4 01:13, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? 76.209.228.203 23:50, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm a German. You <snicker> did this on purpose <guffaw> right? AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA 2A02:2455:1960:4000:6CFB:CAF1:B89F:C57E 09:00, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

What? That's The Funniest Joke in the World. 76.209.228.203 14:27, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I—BAHAHAHAHA《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 21:11, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

This comic is the best comic in a while Mathmaster (talk)

Pentium FDIV Bug is a math error when handling specific rarely-encountered numbers. {footnote: over 30 years ago!!} No FDIV deaths are reported, but we might not know. --PRR (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

ahaha 0.1+0.2 goes brrt (e.g. = 0,30000000000000004) 81.89.66.133 08:54, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

FWIW the double-precision value closest to 0.1 is exactly 0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625 (that's 7205759403792794/2⁵⁶) 76.209.228.203 14:57, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I have a different interpretation of this comic than the one in the explanation. See, I think it makes more sense that due to the infinite nature of numbers, it can be said that there may exist one that happens to be a severe cognitohazard, rather than there certainly being one such number in the comic's universe. HoneyBadger (talk) 01:55, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I found this number years ago, while reading a hexadecimal dump of an image file, and yes, it is just as potent, possibly more so, in hexadecimal. Want to know what it is? It starts (in hex of course) DEADFACEABEDEFACEDAFADEDBADBEADEDBEDAD before going off into more ‘normal’ digits. 2607:FB90:8B1D:C283:21DE:C9A5:72EB:C044 03:42, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Oh, magic numbers. What about a 0x31124837h pointer? 81.89.66.133 08:54, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

SCP nerd here, I think the article should link to a different SCP. SCP-033 isn't really a good example of a cognitohazard, since it affects written/digital storage, not the mind/brain. SCP-012 for example would be a closer fit. (CW: somewhat graphic self harm) --Muno (talk) 04:45, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Speaking of SCP, there's one that's very similar to this. Unfortunately it's only available in Japanese, SCP-1051-JP. It is about large prime numbers that causes death if viewed while being recognized as a prime number. 124.144.180.57 16:29, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

If one supposes that reading the cursed number inside another number is also bad, then for you to have at most a 1/2 chance of reading it in a string of numbers with the bounds given in the comic, you would have to read 1.8*10^21 digits strung together TheTrainsKid (talk) 05:15, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I got a lower bound of 3.12E15 digits, assuming the number is aperiodic. 216.171.48.25 13:14, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Taking an average reading speed of 40 digits per second, that would take the reader a trillion years. 46.144.8.194 07:25, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Good. Trillion years divided by 9 billion people still gives 111.(1) years of non-stop reading. 81.89.66.133 08:55, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

This also exists for computer science in the form of weird code《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 21:11, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash features a visual "virus" that causes neurological damage to hacker's minds when they see a carefully crafted image. This XKCD might be a slight reference to this, too. 91.233.139.14 (talk) 10:31, 4 September 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Another literary example would Max Barry's Lexicon. --Coconut Galaxy (talk) 11:28, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Strange that nobody mentioned SCP-001. Also BLIT is related obviously --2A06:C701:4D78:0:7F56:89BF:2BB3:1DA0 12:13, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Wait, it's a real, nonnegative number? Dammit, I was WAY off! Fephisto (talk) 14:13, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I take psychic damage when I see -1 after spending way too much time writing a function that only expects positive integers with no error handling (I'm not very good) 174.77.66.51 16:58, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Speaking of bad error handling, one of the first programs I made was a country-building simulator. I had a friend play it. A prompt asked how much of the national budget to put into the navy. My friend misunderstood the prompt COMPLETELY and typed in "boats" and the program proceeded to spam output with "boatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboatsboats" millions of time, took up all the processing time and made the PC unusable until the entire OS crashed. Fephisto (talk) 20:36, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Should we include Roko's Basilisk in the list of information hazards? Just feels like it's relevant. 216.93.213.106 (talk) 16:59, 4 September 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Or manual breathing. 172.58.113.84 17:19, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

According to jewish mysticism, there is a name of god of length 216 letters/numbers that let you conjure. Also referred to in the movie Pi -- DaveK (talk) 18:30, 4 September 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

New around here but... I just added a paragrap explaining that 128-bit numbers (or up to 39 decimal digits) are more common than Randall suggests. I'd be surprised if he was surprised by this. Start of a new series...? Or maybe I'm overthinking it. Tsgsh (talk) 20:46, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Is this comic possibly in reference to the recent developments in the Busy Beaver problem? (Taken ad absurdum, of course.) --2600:8800:FF0E:400:1455:42BD:D223:A669 00:20, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

I feel like there's a separate joke here. Mathmeticians are going insane, so they form a (questionable) theory that a cursed number is the cause -- when in fact it likely has something to do with the field of mathematics itself. I remember my math professor from college saying something along the lines of "Math isn't a mentally safe profession, quite a number of us loose our minds."

So the cursed number is a red-herring. The title text alludes to this fact: that mathematicians will intentionally go down paths that lead to insanity because they feel drawn towards it. 67.190.17.105 (talk) 14:16, 5 September 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Regarding the bit in the explanation about representations of the cursed number in different bases, presumably it is the specific string of characters that is cursed. Otherwise, I could declare 10 to be in the cursed number base, and then ... chaos. Surely someone would have done that by now. And if it *is* a specific string of characters, the cursed number thus has a different value in different bases - consider that if the cursed string is 123, then I could write that in base 10 to have a value of 123d, or I could write that in base 4 to have a value of 99d, etc. 163.116.254.46 16:52, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

10^22 has 23 digits (one 1 and twentytwo 0s), so "greater than a 10^22, or 10 sextillion" should be corrected to "greater than 10^21, or a sextillion". 84.208.77.216 19:30, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

I think part of the humor/joke is that mathematics had so few PSA in real life compared to other scientific fields. The only one I can think of was about what probabilities mean during covid. 2607:FB91:BC0:8481:AC39:BD12:6AEC:364C 22:06, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree. I think the idea is similar to XKCD 208 ("Everybody Stand Back. I know Regular Expressions."). Here the mathematicians' efforts to put bounderies on seemingly pointless numbers has some real world importance.Aqua-chestnut (talk) 13:13, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

This is a similar concept to the short story Different Kinds of Darkness, by David Langford. --35.143.89.131 01:01, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Reminds me of the "ten billion human second century" number Matt Parker came up with. 216.206.51.106 14:38, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
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