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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardinal | two | |||
| Ordinal | 2nd (second) | |||
| Numeral system | binary | |||
| Factorization | prime | |||
| Gaussian integer factorization | ||||
| Prime | 1st | |||
| Divisors | 1, 2 | |||
| Greek numeral | Β´ | |||
| Roman numeral | II, ii | |||
| Greek prefix | di- | |||
| Latin prefix | duo-/bi- | |||
| Old English prefix | twi- | |||
| Binary | 102 | |||
| Ternary | 23 | |||
| Senary | 26 | |||
| Octal | 28 | |||
| Duodecimal | 212 | |||
| Hexadecimal | 216 | |||
| Greek numeral | β' | |||
| Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Sindhi, Urdu | ٢ | |||
| Ge'ez | ፪ | |||
| Bengali | ২ | |||
| Chinese numeral | 二,弍,貳 | |||
| Devanāgarī | २ | |||
| Santali | ᱒ | |||
| Tamil | ௨ | |||
| Kannada | ೨ | |||
| Hebrew | ב | |||
| Armenian | Բ | |||
| Khmer | ២ | |||
| Maya numerals | •• | |||
| Thai | ๒ | |||
| Georgian | Ⴁ/ⴁ/ბ(Bani) | |||
| Malayalam | ൨ | |||
| Babylonian numeral | 𒐖 | |||
| Egyptian hieroglyph, Aegean numeral, Chinese counting rod | || | |||
| Morse code | .._ _ _ | |||
2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and the only even prime number.
Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many cultures.
Mathematics
[edit]The number 2 is the second natural number, after 1. Each natural number, including 2, is constructed by succession, that is, by adding 1 to the previous natural number.[1] 2 is the smallest and the only even prime number, and the first Ramanujan prime.[2] It is also the first superior highly composite number,[3] and the first colossally abundant number.[4]
An integer is determined to be even if it is divisible by two. When written in base 10, all multiples of 2 will end in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8;[5] more generally, in any even base, even numbers will end with an even digit.
A digon is a polygon with two sides (or edges) and two vertices.[6]: 52 Two distinct points in a plane are always sufficient to define a unique line in a nontrivial Euclidean space.[7]
A set that is a field has a minimum of two elements.[8]
Binary is a number system with a base of two, it is used extensively in computing.[9]
List of basic calculations
[edit]| Multiplication | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 20 | 25 | 50 | 100 | 1000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 * x | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 22 | 24 | 26 | 28 | 30 | 32 | 40 | 50 | 100 | 200 | 2000 |
| Division | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 ÷ x | 2 | 1 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.285714 | 0.25 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.18 | 0.16 | 0.153846 | 0.142857 | 0.13 | 0.125 | 0.1176470588235294 | 0.1 | 0.105263157894736842 | 0.1 | |
| x ÷ 2 | 0.5 | 1 | 1.5 | 2 | 2.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 4 | 4.5 | 5 | 5.5 | 6 | 6.5 | 7 | 7.5 | 8 | 8.5 | 9 | 9.5 | 10 |
| Exponentiation | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2x | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 32 | 64 | 128 | 256 | 512 | 1024 | 2048 | 4096 | 8192 | 16384 | 32768 | 65536 | 131072 | 262144 | 524288 | 1048576 | |
| x2 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 16 | 25 | 36 | 49 | 64 | 81 | 100 | 121 | 144 | 169 | 196 | 225 | 256 | 289 | 324 | 361 | 400 |
As a word
[edit]Two is most commonly a determiner used with plural countable nouns, as in two days or I'll take these two.[10] Two is a noun when it refers to the number two as in two plus two is four.
The word two is derived from the Old English words twā (feminine), tū (neuter), and twēġen (masculine, which survives today in the form twain).[11]
Evolution of the Arabic digit
[edit]
The digit used in the modern Western world to represent the number 2 traces its roots back to the Indic Brahmic script, where "2" was written as two horizontal lines. The modern Chinese and Japanese languages (and Korean Hanja) still use this method. The Gupta script rotated the two lines 45 degrees, making them diagonal. The top line was sometimes also shortened and had its bottom end curve towards the center of the bottom line. In the Nagari script, the top line was written more like a curve connecting to the bottom line. In the Arabic Ghubar writing, the bottom line was completely vertical, and the digit looked like a dotless closing question mark. Restoring the bottom line to its original horizontal position, but keeping the top line as a curve that connects to the bottom line leads to our modern digit.[12]
In science
[edit]- The first magic number - number of electrons in the innermost electron shell of an atom.[13]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Colman, Samuel (1912). Coan, C. Arthur (ed.). Nature's Harmonic Unity: A Treatise on Its Relation to Proportional Form. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons. p. 10.
- ^ "Sloane's A104272 : Ramanujan primes". The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. OEIS Foundation. Archived from the original on 2011-04-28. Retrieved 2016-06-01.
- ^ "A002201 - OEIS". oeis.org. Archived from the original on 2010-12-29. Retrieved 2024-11-28.
- ^ "A004490 - OEIS". oeis.org. Archived from the original on 2012-05-25. Retrieved 2024-11-28.
- ^ Sloane, N. J. A. (ed.). "Sequence A005843 (The nonnegative even numbers)". The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. OEIS Foundation. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
- ^ Wilson, Robin (2014). Four Colors Suffice (Revised color ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15822-8.
- ^ Carrell, Jim. "Chapter 1 | Euclidean Spaces and Their Geometry". MATH 307 Applied Linear Algebra (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-06-05. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ "Field Contains at least 2 Elements".
- ^ "How computers see the world - Binary - KS3 Computer Science Revision". BBC Bitesize. Retrieved 2024-06-05.
- ^ Huddleston, Rodney D.; Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Reynolds, Brett (2022). A student's introduction to English grammar (2nd ed.). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-316-51464-1. OCLC 1255524478.
- ^ "two, adj., n., and adv.". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer transl. David Bellos et al. London: The Harvill Press (1998): 393, Fig. 24.62
- ^ Watkins, Thayer. "The Complete Explanation of the Nuclear Magic Numbers Which Indicate the Filling of Nucleonic Shells and the Revelation of Special Numbers Indicating the Filling of Subshells Within Those Shells". San José State University. Archived from the original on 2019-12-02. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
External links
[edit]Etymology and representation
Etymology
The word "two" in English derives from Old English twā (feminine and neuter) and twegen (masculine), which trace back to Proto-Germanic twai and ultimately to the Proto-Indo-European root dwo- "two".[8] This root has numerous cognates across Indo-European languages, including Latin duo, Ancient Greek dúō, Sanskrit dva, and Germanic forms like German zwei and Dutch twee. These shared forms demonstrate the common ancestry of the numeral in the Indo-European family.[9] In non-Indo-European languages, the word for "two" has independent origins, such as Chinese èr (二) and Arabic ithnān (اثنان).Written representation
The number 2 is most commonly represented in modern usage by the Hindu-Arabic digit 2, which serves as the standard symbol in decimal positional notation worldwide (except in certain regional variants described below). This digit evolved from ancient Indian Brahmic scripts, where early forms of the numeral for two appeared as angular or curved strokes around the 3rd century BCE; it subsequently developed through Gupta and Nagari scripts into more rounded forms adopted in Arabic mathematical texts by the 9th century CE, before diverging into the Western European typographic shape familiar today.[10] In Roman numerals, 2 is represented as II, consisting of two vertical strokes derived from the Latin letter I used additively. In the Chinese numeral system, 2 is written as 二 (a pair of horizontal lines), a form dating back to ancient usage and still standard in everyday writing; a more complex variant 贰 is employed in financial and formal contexts to prevent alteration.[11] In the Maya numeral system (a vigesimal positional system), 2 is depicted with two dots, typically arranged vertically or horizontally above any bars representing multiples of five. In some Arabic-speaking regions, the Eastern Arabic numeral ٢ is used instead of the Western 2, reflecting a parallel branch of evolution from the same Indian origins but preserving a more angular or looped form. Modern typographic and digital representations of 2 vary by font and style: common forms include the "closed" version with a looped base (resembling a swan or Z-curve) and the "open" version with a straighter, disconnected base; in seven-segment digital displays, it is formed by five illuminated segments. For its use in specific numeral systems, see Numeral systems.Mathematics
Elementary properties
2 is the natural number immediately following 1 and preceding 3 in the sequence of natural numbers. It is the successor of 1 and the predecessor of 3.[12][13] As the smallest positive integer greater than 1, 2 holds a foundational position in the ordering of positive integers. It is also the smallest even natural number, being divisible by 2 with no remainder.[14] 2 is a highly composite number, possessing more positive divisors than any smaller positive integer (specifically two divisors: 1 and itself). Its prime factorization is simply 2 = 2, reflecting its status as a prime number.[14][15] It is the only even prime number, with all larger even numbers being composite.[14]Prime number
2 is the only even prime number. Any even integer greater than 2 is divisible by 2 and greater than 2, hence has a positive divisor other than 1 and itself, making it composite. This establishes that no even number larger than 2 can be prime, leaving 2 as the unique even prime.[16][17][18] As the smallest prime and the only even one, 2 plays a foundational role in the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic, which states that every integer greater than 1 has a unique prime factorization (up to ordering of factors). Every even integer greater than 1 must include 2 as a factor in its unique prime factorization.[19][20] The uniqueness of 2 as the even prime is central to the Goldbach conjecture, which posits that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes. The base case is 4 = 2 + 2, the only instance using 2 (twice). For larger even integers, any attempt to use 2 would require the other addend to be even and greater than 2, which is composite; thus, such representations must use two odd primes (if true).[21][22] Mersenne primes are prime numbers of the form , where the exponent is itself prime. This form, relying on powers of the prime 2, has yielded many of the largest known primes, with primality testable via efficient methods such as the Lucas-Lehmer test.[23][24]Even number
2 is an even number, as it is divisible by 2 with no remainder and can be expressed as . It is the smallest positive even integer.[25][26] An even number is an integer that can be written in the form , where is any integer. This definition applies to positive, negative, and zero values, with the even integers forming the set .[25] 2 is the only even prime number, since any larger even integer is divisible by 2 and thus has additional factors beyond 1 and itself.[27][28][17] Parity classifies integers as even (divisible by 2) or odd (not divisible by 2), with 2 serving as the foundational even number. The arithmetic parity rules follow directly from this classification:- The sum of two even numbers is even.
- The sum of an even number and an odd number is odd.
- The sum of two odd numbers is even.
- The product of an even number and any integer is even.
Arithmetic operations
In arithmetic, the number 2 plays a foundational role in the concepts of doubling and halving, serving as the smallest integer greater than 1 that meaningfully alters other numbers through multiplication or division. Addition involving 2 corresponds to incrementing by two units. A key identity is that adding any number to itself yields twice that number: . This defines the operation of doubling a quantity. Multiplication by 2 produces the same result as doubling, so . As the smallest non-trivial multiplier (beyond the identity element 1), 2 is the base for the simplest non-identity scaling in arithmetic. Division by 2 is the inverse process, known as halving. When applied to an even number, division by 2 always yields an integer, reflecting that even numbers are exactly divisible by 2. In exponentiation, 2 raised to successive positive integer powers generates the sequence of powers of 2: , , , , and so on. Each term doubles the previous one, forming a geometric progression with ratio 2. These powers of 2 are notable for their binary representation, where each corresponds to a single bit position (see Numeral systems).[14]Numeral systems
In positional numeral systems, a number's representation uses digits whose values are determined by their position, with each position corresponding to a power of the base (radix). The number 2 has a straightforward representation in most bases. In the decimal system (base 10), it is written as the single digit 2, with positional value 2 × 100 = 2.[30] In the binary system (base 2), the only available digits are 0 and 1, so 2 cannot be expressed with a single digit. It is instead written as 102, representing 1 × 21 + 0 × 20 = 2.[30][5] In any integer base b > 2, the digit 2 belongs to the valid digit set (0 through b-1), so 2 is represented simply as 2 in that base, with value 2 × b0 = 2.[30][31] Examples include:- base 3: 23
- base 8 (octal): 28
- base 16 (hexadecimal): 216
