Definitions for magic number the atomic number of an extra
stable strongly bound atomic nucleus: 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 or
126 the number of neutrons or protons in nuclei which are
required to fill the major quantum shells, and thus produce
exceptionally stable nuclei - 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 & 126 A
metric used to determine a team's required performance to make
the playoffs. The New Hacker's Dictionary [Unix/C; common] 1. In
source code, some non-obvious constant whose value is
significant to the operation of a program and that is inserted
inconspicuously in-line (hardcoded), rather than expanded in by
a symbol set by a commented #define. Magic numbers in this sense
are bad style. 2. A number that encodes critical information
used in an algorithm in some opaque way. The classic examples of
these are the numbers used in hash or CRC functions, or the
coefficients in a linear congruential generator for pseudo-
random numbers. This sense actually predates and was ancestral
to the more common sense 3. Special data loc