In mathematics
Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being and . Four is the sum and product of two with itself: + = = x , the only number such that + = = x , which also makes four the smallest squared prime number . In Knuth's up-arrow notation, , and so forth, for any number of up arrows. By consequence, four is the only square one more than a prime number, specifically three. The sum of the first four prime numbers two + three + five + seven is the only sum of four consecutive prime numbers that yields an odd prime number,List of basic calculations
Evolution of the Hindu-Arabic digit
In religion
Buddhism
*Judeo-Christian symbolism
*The Tetragrammaton is the four-letter name of God. *Hinduism
*There are four Vedas: Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. *In Puruṣārtha, there are four aims of human life:Islam
* Eid al-Adha lasts for four days, from the 10th to the 14th of Dhul Hijja. *The four holy cities of Islam: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Damascus. *The four tombs in the Green Dome: Muhammad, Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Khattab and Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus). *There are fourTaoism
*Four Symbols of I ChingOther
*In a more general sense, numerous mythological and cosmogonical systems consider Four corners of the world as essentially corresponding to the four points of the compass. *Four is the sacred number of the Zia (New Mexico), Zia, an indigenous tribe located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. *The Chinese, the Koreans, and the Japanese are tetraphobia, superstitious about the number four because it is a homonym for "death" in their languages. *In Slavic mythology, the god Svetovid has four heads.In politics
*Four Freedoms: four fundamental freedoms that Franklin D. Roosevelt declared ought to be enjoyed by everyone in the world: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear. *Gang of Four: Popular name for four Chinese Communist Party leaders who rose to prominence during China's Cultural Revolution, but were ousted in 1976 following the death of Chairman Mao Zedong. Among the four was Mao's widow, Jiang Qing. Since then, many other political factions headed by four people have been called "Gangs of Four".In computing
*Four bits (half a byte) are sometimes called a nibble.In science
*A tetramer is an oligomer formed out of four sub-units.In astronomy
*Four terrestrial (or rocky) planets in the Solar System: Mercury (planet), Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. *Four giant gas/ice planets in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. *Four of Jupiter's moons (the Galilean moons) are readily visible from Earth with a hobby telescope. *Messier object Messier 4, M4, a magnitude 7.5 globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius. *The Roman numeral IV stands for subgiant in the stellar classification, Yerkes spectral classification scheme.In biology
*Four is the number of nucleobase types in DNA and RNA – adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine (uracil in RNA). *Many chordates have four feet, legs or leglike appendages (tetrapods). *The mammalian heart consists of four chambers. *Many mammals (Carnivora, Ungulata) use four fingers for movement. *All insects with wings except fly, flies and some others have four wings. *Insects of the superorder Endopterygota, also known as Holometabola, such as butterflies, ants, bees, beetles, fleas, flies, moths, and wasps, undergo holometabolism—complete metamorphism in four stages—from (1) embryo (ovum, egg), to (2) larva (such as grub, caterpillar), then (3) pupa (such as the chrysalis), and finally (4) the imago. *In the common ABO blood group system, there are four blood types (A, B, O, AB). *Humans have four canine tooth, canines and four wisdom teeth. *The cow's stomach is divided in four digestive compartments: reticulum, rumen, omasum and abomasum.In chemistry
*Valence (chemistry), Valency of carbon (that is basis of life on the Earth) is four. Also because of its tetrahedral crystal bond structure, diamond (one of the natural allotropes of carbon) is the hardest known naturally occurring material. It is also the valence of silicon, whose compounds form the majority of the mass of the Earth's crust. *The atomic number of beryllium *There are four basic states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma (physics), plasma.In physics
*Special relativity and general relativity treat nature as four- dimensional: Three-dimensional space (mathematics), 3D regular space and one-dimensional time are treated together and called spacetime. Also, any event ''E'' has a light cone composed of four zones of possible communication and cause and effect (outside the light cone is strictly incommunicado). *There are four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravitation, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force). *In statistical mechanics, the four functions inequality is an inequality for four functions on a finite distributive lattice.In logic and philosophy
In technology
In transport
In sports
* In the Australian Football League, the top level of Australian rules football, each team is allowed 4 "Interchange (Australian rules football), interchanges" (substitute players), who can be freely substituted at any time, subject to a limit on the total number of substitutions. *In baseball: **There are four bases in the game: first base, second base, third base, and home plate; to score a run, an offensive player must complete, in the sequence shown, a circuit of those four bases. ** When a batter receives four pitches that the umpire declares to be "Strike zone, balls" in a single at-bat, a base on balls, informally known as a "walk", is awarded, with the batter sent to first base. **For scoring, number 4 is assigned to the second baseman. **Four is the most runs that can be scored on any single at bat, whereby all three baserunners and the batter score (the most common being via a grand slam (baseball), grand slam). **The fourth batter in the batting lineup is called the cleanup hitter. *In basketball, the number four is used to designate the Power forward (basketball), power forward position, often referred to as "the four spot" or "the four". *In cricket, a four is a specific type of scoring event, whereby the ball crosses the boundary (cricket), boundary after touching the ground at least one time, scoring four runs. Taking four wickets in four consecutive balls is typically referred to as a double hat trick (two consecutive, overlapping hat tricks). *In American Football teams get four downs to reach the line of gain. *In rowing (sport), rowing, a four refers to a boat for four rowers, with or without coxswain. In rowing nomenclature, 4− represents a coxless four and 4+ represents a coxed four. *In rugby league: ** A Try (rugby), try is worth 4 points. ** One of the two starting centres wears the jersey number 4. (An exception to this rule is the Super League, which uses static squad numbering.) *In rugby union: ** One of the two starting Lock (rugby union), locks wears the jersey number 4. ** In the standard Rugby union bonus points system, bonus points system, a point is awarded in the league standings to a team that scores at least 4 tries in a match, regardless of the match result.In other fields
In music
*In written music, Time signature, common time is constructed of four beats per measure and a quarter note receives one beat. *In popular or Popular music, modern music, the most common time signature is also founded on four beats, i.e., 4/4 having four quarter note beats. *The common major scale is built on two sets of four notes (e.g., CDEF, GABC), where the first and last notes create an octave interval (a pair-of-four relationship). *The interval of a perfect fourth is a foundational element of many genres of music, represented in music theory as the tonic (music), tonic and subdominant relationship. Four is also embodied within the circle of fifths (also known as circle of fourths), which reveals the interval of four in more active harmonic contexts. *The typical number of movements in a symphony. *The number of completed, numbered symphonies by Johannes Brahms. *The number of strings on a violin, a viola, a cello, double bass, a cuatro (instrument), cuatro, a typical bass guitar, and a ukulele, and the number of string pairs on a mandolin. *"Four calling birds" is the gift on the fourth day of Christmas in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas (song), The Twelve Days of Christmas".Groups of four
* Big Four (disambiguation) *Four basic operations of arithmetic:See also
*List of highways numbered 4References
*Wells, D. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers'' London: Penguin Group. (1987): 55–58External links