16 (number)
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Sixteen is a composite number, and a square number, being 4² = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being 1, 2, 4 and 8.

It is the fourth power of two. For this reason, 16 was used in weighing light objects in several cultures. The British used to have 16 ounces in one pound, the Chinese used to have 16 liangs in one jin. In old days, weighing was done with a beam balance to make equal splits. It would be easier to split a heap of grains into sixteen equal parts through successive divisions than to split into ten parts. Chinese Taoists did finger computation on the trigrams and hexagrams by counting the finger tips and joints of the fingers with the tip of the thumb. Each hand can count up to 16 in such manner. The Chinese abacus uses two upper beads to represent the 5's and 5 lower beads to represent the 1's, the 7 beads can represent from a hexadecimal digit from 0 to 15 in each column.

As a power of 2 it has an aliquot sum one less than itself; 15, and is the fifth composite member of the 3-aliquot tree having the 7 member aliquot sequence (16,15,9,4,3,1,0).

Sixteen is the first number to be the aliquot sum of a lesser number; 12, it is also the aliquot sum of the greater discrete biprime 26. It is the fourth power of two.

Sixteen is the only integer that equals mⁿ and n^m, for some unequal integral m and n (m=4, n=2, or vice versa). It has this property because . It is also equal to 2↑↑3, (using Knuth's up-arrow notation).

15 and 16 form a Ruth-Aaron pair under the second definition in which repeated prime factors are counted as often as they occur.

Since it is possible to find sequences of 16 consecutive integers such that each inner member member shares a factor with either the first or the last member, 16 is an Erdős–Woods number. The smallest such range of 16 consecutive integers is from 2184 to 2200.¹

16 is a centered pentagonal number.

16 is the base of the hexadecimal number system, which is used extensively in computer science.

In science

• The atomic number of sulfur.
• Group 16 of the periodic table are the Chalcogens.

Age 16

• Sixteen is the minimum age for being allowed an official beginners driver's license with parental consent in many U.S. states and in Canada. In Australia and Norway it is the age one can begin to get a learner's licence.
• In some states in the U.S and some provinces in Canada it is the age one can obtain a learner's permit.
• Sixteen is the minimum age for getting an adult job in most states and provinces in... ? (as well as dropping out of school).
• In the United States, female sixteen year olds earn the right to privacy laws surrounding OBGYN practices.
• In the Netherlands and Italy it is the legal minimum age for a person to purchase any tobacco product.
• Sixteen is the age of consent for many jurisdictions around the world.
• For its "coming of age" significance, this age has inspired the titles of many songs, such as "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen", "You're Sixteen", "Sweet Sixteen", "U16 Girls" "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Sixteen Candles", the last of which was borrowed as the title of a John Hughes movie. (This last one was also parodied in a novelty song by The Mothers, titled "Eddie Are You Kidding?", a tribute to the Los Angeles clothing store Zachary All; the tag line is "Sixteen Tailors...")
• Sixteen is the minimum age to get married with parental consent in many countries.
• Sixteen is the legal drinking age in France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy, The Netherlands and Portugal.
• In The Netherlands sixteen is the age when all adult rights are granted but the age of majority is 18.
• Minimum age at which one can buy, rent, purchase, buy tickets to, or view a 16+ rated movie in the province of Quebec. It is also the minimum age at which one can accompany a minor under 13 while buying, renting, or purchasing tickets to a 13+ rated movie in the province of Quebec.
• Minimum age at which one can donate blood with parental consent in many states.
• Minimum age at which one can obtain a 10 year passport in the U.S.

In sports

Football

• Peyton Manning wore number 16 at the University of Tennessee which was retired by the school in 2006.
• Joe Montana wore number 16 while winning four Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers.
• The 2007 New England Patriots won 16 games in the regular season by going 16-0.
• Jermaine Pennant of Liverpool FC also wears number 16.
• Tom Brady's replacement, Matt Cassel, wears 16.

Baseball

• In Major League Baseball, 16 has been retired for the pitchers Whitey Ford and Hal Newhouser.

Hockey

• In hockey, the number 16 is retired by the St. Louis Blues in honor of Brett Hull and the Montreal Canadiens in honor of Henri Richard. It will also be retired by the Vancouver Canucks in honor of Trevor Linden.

• Also, not used by any Detroit Red Wing player, in honor of Vladimir Konstantinov.

Auto Racing

• Greg Biffle is currently the driver of the number 16 car in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

In other fields

• The current Roman Catholic Pope is Pope Benedict XVI (16).
• There are sixteen ounces in an avoirdupois pound.
• There are sixteen pawns in a chess set and each player in a chess game starts with sixteen pieces

Sixteen frames of images

• "The Sixteen" is an English choir performing early religious music.
• Sixteen is a Polish band that represented Poland in the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest.
• Greg Biffle's NASCAR Sprint Cup car number.
• The Cadillac Sixteen.
• There are sixteen different personality types in the Myers-Briggs classification system.
• A note played for one-sixteenth the duration of a whole note is called a sixteenth note or a semiquaver.
• In the 16-bit era, 16-bit microprocessor ran 16-bit applications.
• Sixteen Kingdoms, part of Chinese history.
• Canada's Yellowhead Highway is designated as Highway 16.
• Interstate 16 is the designation for a US interstate highway in Georgia.
• The fighter jet, the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
• 16 mm film was originally an amateur movie format, but is now used by professionals.
• 16 is one of The Numbers - 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 - featured in Lost.
• 16 is a song by Green Day on their album 39/Smooth.
• The M16 rifle.
• The number 16 is the symbol of the Day of solidarity with political prisoners and victims of the Lukashenka regime in Belarus, which is commemorated on 16th of every months by demonstrations and flash mobs worldwide.
• A sixteen is a slang term for a verse in a hip hop song, which are often written in sixteen-bar stanzas.²
• Android 16 of the Dragonball Z television series.
• The amount of waking hours in a day in an "8 hours of sleep" schedule.
• In the story of the Sleeping Beauty, a spell is placed on the princess that when she reaches her 16th birthday, she will "prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die."
• 16 is the number of the French department Charente
• Many bank card numbers are 16 digits long.

References