# What are examples of unexpected algebraic numbers of high degree occured in some math problems?

Recently I asked a question about a possible transcendence of the number $\Gamma\left(\frac{1}{5}\right)\Gamma\left(\frac{4}{15}\right)/\left(\Gamma\left(\frac{1}{3}\right)\Gamma\left(\frac{2}{15}\right)\right)$, which, to my big surprise, turned out to be an algebraic number, but not some decent algebraic number like $\left(\sqrt{5}-1\right)/2$, but an enormous one with the minimal polynomial of degree 120 and a coefficient exceeding $10^{15}$.

So, my question: are there other interesting examples of numbers occurred in some math problems that were expected likely to be transcendental, but later unexpectedly were proven to be algebraic with a huge minimal polynomial.

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I don't know if Conway's constant is quite what you are looking for, as I'm not sure one would expect it initially to be transcendental or not. So, perhaps it's my bad intuition, but I was certainly surprised to learn that it is an algebraic number with minimal polynomial of degree 71.

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Sometimes you can get unexpected algebraic values while working with hypergeometric functions. For example, the following absolute value of a complex-valued $_4F_3$ function: $$\left|\,_4F_3\left(\frac{1}{5},\frac{2}{5},\frac{3}{5},\frac{4}{5};\frac{1}{2},\frac{3}{4},\frac{5}{4};\sqrt{\phi }\right)\right|,$$ where $\phi$ is the golden ratio, is actually an algebraic number with the minimal polynomial of degree 80 and a coefficient exceeding $10^{55}$: $$340282366920938463463374607431768211456 x^{80}+152118072027387528179604384645120000000000 x^{72}+202824096036516704239472512860160000000000 x^{70}-45334718235548594051481600000000000000000000 x^{62}+15111572745182864683827200000000000000000000 x^{60}-5629499534213120000000000000000000000000000000 x^{56}-24769797950537728000000000000000000000000000000 x^{54}-33776997205278720000000000000000000000000000000 x^{52}-9007199254740992000000000000000000000000000000 x^{50}+1006632960000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{46}+3523215360000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{44}+74161139200000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{40}+300000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{38}+675000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{36}+1050000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{34}-2975290298461914062500000000000000000000000000000000 x^{32}-14701161193847656250000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{30}-37252902984619140625000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{28}-74505805969238281250000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{26}-59604644775390625000000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{24}-22351741790771484375000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{22}+7450580596923828125000000000000000000000000000000000 x^{20}-555111512312578270211815834045410156250000000000000000 x^{16}-1110223024625156540423631668090820312500000000000000000 x^{14}-1665334536937734810635447502136230468750000000000000000 x^{12}-2220446049250313080847263336181640625000000000000000000 x^{10}+82718061255302767487140869206996285356581211090087890625$$

I'm not sure if it is expressible in radicals.

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Just an everyday polynomial, then. Looks simple enough.. –  Thomas May 10 '13 at 3:55
Yes, it would be much more interesting if a number with a pretty simple definition turned out to be unexpectedly algebraic, but with a minimal polynomial so large that we could not explicitly write it (e.g. with degree and coefficients exceeding TREE(3)) –  Vladimir Reshetnikov May 10 '13 at 20:55
Broadhurst found that the third and fourth bifurcation points (B3 and B4) of the logistic map were algebraic of degree $12$ and $240$ (page 3 from this paper and 5 from this one and this ps file for B4).