6

= 2 × 3

= 1 + 2 + 3
A triangular number.

= 1 × 2 × 3
Factorial 3 or 3!

The factors of 6 (1, 2 and 3) add up to six. This makes 6 the first perfect number.

1, 2 and 3 make 6 whether you add them together or multiply them.

Sex- and hex- mean six. So there are six sides on a hexagon and six musicians in a sextet. Sextuplets are six children born together and a hexapod is something with six feet, like an insect.


A hexagonal cake box
A hexagonal cake box.


A cube has six faces and another name for a cube is a hexahedron. Six is the highest number on a normal die. An octahedron has six corners or vertices and a tetrahedron has six edges.

Six-legged arthropods include insects like flies, moths, ants, beetles and wasps.


Six squares arranged into a triangle
Six as a triangular number.


There are six feet in a fathom. A fathom is a unit of length used mainly by sailors. It equals 1.8288 metres.

Volley ball and ice hockey are both played with teams of 6 players.

King Henry VIII had six wives and there are six murder suspects in a game of Cluedo.

Hexagonal structures are found in many living things such as the cells of a honey comb. Carbon, the element that is present in all living matter, has the atomic number six.

'Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast' exclaimed the White Queen in Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass.


Metal balls displaying hexagonal pattern
The hexagonal pattern that forms naturally when metal balls lie on a flat surface.


Number 6