{"id":17185,"date":"2026-01-09T12:25:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=17185"},"modified":"2026-01-09T14:47:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:47:03","slug":"2026-is-a-provably-happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2026\/01\/09\/2026-is-a-provably-happy-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 is a provably Happy New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class = rtcContent><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>Mike's pick this week is <\/span><a href = \"https:\/\/uk.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/fileexchange\/182984-happy-numbers\"><span>Happy Numbers<\/span><\/a><span> by <\/span><a href = \"https:\/\/uk.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/profile\/authors\/3985281\"><span>Martin Foltin<\/span><\/a><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>Every new year, I like to see what makes this year's number interesting. For 2026, I got an easy first hit since it turns out that 2026 is an example of a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Happy_number\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span>Happy Number<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>According to the Wikipedia page, \"A <\/span><span style=' font-weight: bold;'>happy number<\/span><span> is a number which eventually reaches 1 when the number is replaced by the sum of the square of each digit.\"  Here's a demonstration that 2026 is happy<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>2026 \u2192  2\u00b2 + 0\u00b2 + 2\u00b2 + 6\u00b2 = 44<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>44 \u2192  4\u00b2 + 4\u00b2 = 32<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>32 \u2192  3\u00b2 + 2\u00b2 = 13<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>13 \u2192  1\u00b2 + 3\u00b2 = 10<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>10 \u2192  1\u00b2 + 0\u00b2 = 1<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>All integers are either happy or unhappy and the next happy new year will be in 2030! For further details, check out the Live Script written by Martin that forms today's pick of the week. You can download it from <\/span><a href = \"https:\/\/uk.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/fileexchange\/182984-happy-numbers\"><span>File Exchange<\/span><\/a><span> or <\/span><a href = \"https:\/\/matlab.mathworks.com\/open\/fileexchange\/v1?id=182984\"><span>open it directly in MATLAB Online<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>Happy New Year!<\/span><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><img class = \"imageNode\" src = \"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/happy26POTW_1.png\" width = \"526\" height = \"316\" alt = \"\" style = \"vertical-align: baseline; width: 526px; height: 316px;\"><\/img><\/div><div  style = 'margin: 2px 10px 9px 4px; padding: 0px; line-height: 21px; min-height: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; text-align: left; '><span>  <\/span><\/div>\r\n<\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var css = ''; var head = document.head || document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0], style = document.createElement('style'); head.appendChild(style); style.type = 'text\/css'; if (style.styleSheet){ style.styleSheet.cssText = css; } else { style.appendChild(document.createTextNode(css)); }<\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"overview-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/files\/happy26POTW_1.png\" class=\"img-responsive attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/div><p>Mike's pick this week is Happy Numbers by Martin FoltinEvery new year, I like to see what makes this year's number interesting. For 2026, I got an easy first hit since it turns out that 2026 is an... <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2026\/01\/09\/2026-is-a-provably-happy-new-year\/\">read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,33,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17187,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17185\/revisions\/17187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}