February 4, 2026
Beast fax sparks math slapfight
The fax numbers of the beast, and other mathematical sports
Math fans feud over the Beast’s fax, call out 'fake primes,' and cheer the online number bible
TLDR: Neil Sloane’s gigantic online number encyclopedia lit up the comments with a “fax of the beast” gag and a sharp correction about a misdescribed sequence. Fans cheered the math wonderland while squabbling over 667 vs 617 and calling out “fake primes,” proving nerd joy and vigilance run the show.
The internet’s favorite number rabbit hole—the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, a massive, 250,000‑entry “number dictionary” founded by mathematician Neil Sloane—sparked pure comment‑section chaos after a cheeky “fax number of the beast” joke. One fan laughed at 667 and the brain‑tingles of math play, but another swooped in to claim the “real” beastly fax is 617, and the numerology nitpicking began.
Then the plot thickened: a sharp‑eyed commenter accused the article of flubbing an entry, saying A138563 was called a list of primes containing 667—but they aren’t primes at all, just numbers with “667” in them. Cue the collective gasp and the “check your sequences” chorus. Meanwhile, helpful nerds tossed in deep cuts like Hofstadter’s mind‑bendy Q‑sequence, because of course they did.
The pedant parade didn’t stop there: someone pointed out that A000001 isn’t “the positive integers” (that’s actually A000027). Classic OEIS energy—half museum, half mosh pit. Through it all, commenters celebrated Sloane’s decades‑long passion project, where sequences come with graphs, citations, and even music, turning math into a playground. The vibe: joyful geekery with a side of fact‑check fury—and a devilish dash of fax‑number drama.
Key Points
- •Neil Sloane began collecting integer sequences in 1964 during his PhD work at Cornell University.
- •He published a 1973 handbook with 2,373 sequences and took the collection online in 1996.
- •The OEIS now contains over 250,000 entries and is widely used by mathematicians, computer theorists, and scientists.
- •Each OEIS entry includes catalog numbers, definitions, references, graph visualizations, and an audio option.
- •Sloane runs the OEIS Foundation from Highland Park, New Jersey; the interview was conducted by Margaret Wertheim.