NUKHA 



Nukha. Town <>f A/, ii -ij.m. 



It i- in Hi.- ,h-t . itn.l |(H) n, 

 <>f Kh/.alM-tpoi. ;iu,| i- -itniiUxl on 

 tin- S. slope of the CaucaHUH range. 

 Tin- , In, t industries are tlu- < ulti 

 vatiun of fruit ml the rearing of 

 silkworiUH. Pop. 42,000. 



Nullity (hut. nullu.i, none). 

 The state of being null or 

 In Kni-land the term is ehielly 

 used in a legal sense. A nullity 

 of niiirriage ia a proceeding in 

 the divorce court to declare a 

 marriage null and void from the 

 lir.nmning on one of tin- following 

 grounds : aksener of real consent, 

 by reason of one party being insan.-. 

 or by reason 01 fraud or duress ; 

 consanguinity or affinity of the 

 parties; or impotence of cither 

 party, rendering contmmmation 

 impossible unless it is curable by 

 an operation. If a wife deliber- 

 ately resists and continues to 

 resist cohabitation, the court may 

 inf.-r that she is impotent. The 

 existence of a prior marriage is 

 also ground for a decree of nullity. 

 When the decree has been pro- 

 nounced, it is as if no marriage 

 had ever been celebrated, and the 

 wife resumes her maiden name. 

 See Divorce. 



Nuniantia. Am-i.-nt stronghold 

 of the Arevaci in N. Spain, on the 

 Douro, near Soria. The centre of 

 the struggle between the Celti- 

 berians and the Romans from 154- 

 133 B.C., it withstood several sieges 

 and defeated a whole Roman army 

 in 137. The garrison of some 6,000 

 to 8,000 Spaniards was eventually 

 obliged to capitulate through star- 

 vation after a 15 months' siege 

 (134-133 B.C.) by 60,000 men 

 under Scipio Aemilianus. The 

 Roman town of Nuniantia was 

 afterwards built on the site. 

 Excavations conducted 1905-10 

 brought to light many valuable 

 Roman antiquities. 



Numa Pompilius. Second of 

 the seven legendary kings of an- 

 cient Rome. He is reputed to have 

 reigned from 715 to 673 B.C. A 

 man of peace, instructed in sacred 

 lore by the nymph Egeria (q.v.), 

 he first established the priestly 

 offices of the Roman state. He 

 also divided the land among the 

 people, and the craftsmen into 

 guilds according to occupation. 

 During his reign the gates of the 

 temple o* Janus were closed. See 

 Janus. 



Number (Lat. numenu). Special 

 form of a word to express unity or 

 plurality. In addition to singular 

 and plural, there was also a dual 

 number, indicating that two per- 

 sons or things were concerned. It 

 survives in some Indo-European 

 dialects and in the Semitic lan- 

 guages. 



B797 



Number. The abstract ratio of 

 one quantity to another of th 

 name kind. The origin of numbers 

 ia loat in hiatory, but the classifica- 

 tion of number* can be traced 

 more definitely. An Egyptian 

 papyrua dating from 1000 B.C. has 

 a collection of problem* dealing 

 with frai-tioinil mimlHTH. I'ytha 

 goraa certainly understood poly- 

 gonal numbers, factor*, propor- 

 tion, etc., an. I Kudul di-viiti-d four 

 books to the aubj. t. 'II,,- namea, 

 etc., of number*, aa trillion, are 

 dealt with in the article Numeral. 



Numbers may be classified 

 under many heads, aa odd and 

 even, prime and composite, ra- 

 tional and irrational, and figurate 

 numbers. Figurate numbers are 

 those originally derived from geo- 

 metrical considerations. Odd num- 

 bers are 1, 3, 5, 7 ; even numbers 

 2, 4, 6 ; prime numbers those 

 which have as factors themselves 

 and unity ; composite numbers 

 those which admit of factorisation, 

 e.g. 12 is 2x2x3; rational num- 

 bers are those which can be ex- 

 pressed as the ratio of two integral 

 numbers ; irrational numbers those 

 which cannot be so expressed, t.g. 

 j/2- The two most important irra- 

 tional numbers are e, the base of 

 the Napierian system of logar- 

 ithms 2-7182818 . ., and r, the ratio 

 of the circumference of a circle 

 to its diameter, 3-14159 . . The 

 value of the latter has been cal- 

 culated to over 700 places of 

 decimals. There is a further class of 

 numbers known as unreal or 

 imaginary numbers, the roots of 

 negative quantities. Such num- 

 bers are of great importance in 

 many problems of physics. 



The theory of numbers was one 

 of the main high roads of mathe- 

 matical advance for many cen- 

 turies. Fermat, in the 17th century, 

 enunciated a large number of 

 problems and their solutions in the 

 theory of numbers ; Legendre, 

 Euler, and Gauss added a series of 

 brilliant investigations, particu- 

 larly into the laws governing prime 

 numbers. Cauchy, Cayley, Jacobi, 

 Riemann, Poinsot, Lindemann, 

 Sylvester, etc., carried the theory 

 of numbers still further. See 

 Arithmetic ; Fractions ; Numeral ; 

 consult also Theory of Numbers, 

 G. B. Mathews, 1892. 



Number of the Beast, THE, OR 

 APOCALYPTIC NUMBER. A mystical 

 or symbolical number occurring in 

 the apocalyptic vision of the 

 Beasts in the N.T. book of Revela- 

 tion. The reference is in Rev. xiii, 

 18 : " He that hath understanding, 

 let him count the number of the 

 beast ; for it is the number of a 

 man : and his number is Six hun- 

 dred and sixty and six." The 



NUMERAL 



Beast is here equivalent to the 

 Ant i. -hriat who will for a time gala 

 dominion over the whole world, 

 but in the end will rx- overthrown 

 by the angel* of God (Rev. xiv, 

 U ff. ; xv, 1 ff. ). The number ia 

 auppoaed to represent the um of 

 the numerical values of some pro- 

 per name, written m M- drew or 

 Greek letters, and attempt* have 

 been made to identify toe Beast 

 with various historical characters. 

 Since 616 appears as a variant of 

 666 (Rev. xiii, 18), a favourite 

 i'l.Mitilii ution is with the Roman 

 emperor \er<> (Neron Caesar 666; 

 Nero Caesar 616 : in Hebrew 

 letters). Many other identifica- 

 tions have been suggested, e.g. 

 Mahomet, Luther, Napoleon I. 

 See Antichrist. 



Numbers Fourth book of the 

 Pentateuch, or, rather, Hexateuch. 

 It takes its title from the Septua- 

 gint, the book being so called 

 because it contains accounts of 

 two numbering* of the children of 

 Israel. The Hebrew title is In 

 the Wilderness. Three divisions 

 may be distinguished : (a) the first 

 census and other events prepara- 

 tory to the departure from Sinai, 

 Num. i-x, 28 ; (6) the journey from 

 Sinai to Moab, Num. x, 29 to xxv, 

 18 ; (c) the second census, the 

 appointment of Joshua as Moses* 

 successor, and other events, Num. 

 26-36. Within these divisions 

 there are a number of sections 

 which form part of the so-called 

 Priestly Code (Num. 1-10, 17-19, 

 25-31, 33-36). There are several 

 poems in the book. The poetic 

 fragments in Num. 21, one of which 

 has been called the Song of the 

 Well (v. 17, 18), are stated to have 

 been taken from the Book of the 

 Wars of the Lord. The poetic 

 utterances of Balaam (Num. I'. 1 * 

 and 24) also belong to the more 

 ancient documents of the Hexa- 

 teuch. See Hexateuch. 



Numeral. Figure or symbol 

 used to represent number. Un- 

 doubtedly the earliest way of re- 

 presenting numbers was by means 

 of notches on a stick and by per- 

 pendicular strokes. The system 

 now in use in most civilized coun- 

 tries, employing the symbols 0, 1. 

 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, is partly Hindu 

 and partly Arabic. .The scale of 

 tens is probably derived from the 

 number of the human fingers. 

 The value of a numeral under this 

 system varies according to its 

 position, e.g. the 7 in the numbers 

 7, 71, 716, 7,164 represents 7 units, 

 7 tens, 7 hundreds, and 7 thousands 

 respectively, and this convenient 

 way of writing numbers gradually 

 came into use in India about \ . D.500 

 and spread slowly through Europe. 

 The use of the decimal point, with 



