Numbers
Number fun facts:
Note: This section or page contains base-ten dependent content.
One Digit
- 1 is the loneliest number, and the Ancient Greeks didn't even call this a number; they called it a unit. Monists love this number
- 2 can be as bad as one. Dualists love this number
- 3 is a trinity, and is thus a widely loved number, and not just in the west. In the East because of the heaven, earth, and man trinity and the Hindu Trimurti. There is also 1st, 2nd and 3rd person, party, or world, but these types rarely, if ever, include the next number.
- 4 is a combo breaker. We call them abcs and 123s, not abcds or 1234s for some reason. It's the first composite number, and is considered unlucky in the Far East. 4 leaf clovers are considered lucky due to their rarity. It's the smallest positive non-fibonacci number.
- 5 is the 3rd prime and the sum of the 1st and 2nd primes. Adding 1 to 5's square root and halving yields the golden ratio. A lot of things in fives are golden. A hand has 5 digits: 1 thumb and 4 fingers. There are Five Pillars of Islam, one of which involves praying 5 times a day, and the five law giving prophets are Nuh (Noah), Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus), and Muhammad.
- 6 is a perfect number: 1+2+3 = 6 = 3*2*1. China considers it lucky, but for Christians, three sixes in a row (in base 10) are considered especially evil. Genesis states that God created the world in 6 days:
- light/dark, aka day/night
- sea/sky
- dry land with vegetation.
- The Sun, Moon, and stars were created to populate and light the darkness above.
- The seas were populated with all sorts of life, and the sky with birds. The swarms were to multiply and fill the waters in the seas, but the birds were to multiply on the earth.
- The land was populated with livestock, creeping things, and beasts, each according to its kind. Man was created in God's image, male and female, to have dominion over the fish, birds, livestock, and over all the earth, even every creeping thing creeping on the earth.
- 7 is linked with the dead in China and is thus considered unlucky there. It's considered lucky in the West, up there with 3. God rested on the seventh day: which became holy, and is known as the Sabbath. There are 7 days in a week, so weekends always repeat in weekly cycles.
- 8 is especially lucky for China, and by extension, Singapore, as it sounds like "wealth". It's a perfect cube: 2*2*2 = 8.
- 9 sounds like pain or torture in Japanese, but in Thai, it sounds like progress.
Two Digits
- 10 is the number of digits on our hands, and consequently, the most popular numbering system.
- 11 is a prime, one less than the lucky number 12. After Judas's betrayal, there were only 11 apostles of Jesus before they chose a replacement to bring it back to 12. 11 combined with 9 forms 911, an emergency number. In 2001, 9/11 was a particularly infamous day.
- 12 is the number of tribes of Israel, the number of Jesus's disciples, and the amount of Imams in Twelver Shi'a Islam. In English Common Law, there are twelve jurors. There are 12 months in most calendar systems, as that approximates to how many lunar months it takes to complete a solar year.
- 13 is famously unlucky in the west, the reason of which is unknown. It's to the point which elevators skip floor 13. Friday the 13th is considered especially unlucky. In a lunisolar calendar, a 13th month is sometimes added to keep up with years. However, the Julian and Gregorian Calendar add leap days instead of leap months, and intercalation is haram (forbidden) in Islam, so their 12 month lunar calendar has faster years. 13 was unlucky for the British, as they lost that many colonies to America's Revolutionary War. 13 is the first teen number.
- 14 is terrifying for China as it sounds like "want to die", "going to die" or "certainly die". This is because the number 4 is involved.
- 17 is considered unlucky in Italy. The Roman numerals XVII can be rearranged to VIXI, meaning "my life is over". Italian airlines and a car brand skip 17 for this reason.
- 18 is the numerical value for 'life' in Hebrew: "חי". In the West, 18 years old is the start of adulthood.
- 19 angels guard hell according to the Qur'an (Sura 74:30). In the Baháʼí calendar, there are 19 months of 19 days, plus 4 or 5 days to add up to a full solar year. The board game Go is typically played on a 19x19 board. 19 is the last teen number.
- 27 is 3*3*3, or 3^3, so it shows up as a favorite number. It's Weird Al's favorite
- 33 in Spanish is "trienta y tres," which makes people smile for pictures.
- 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. In Japanese, 4 and 2 together sound like "going to death," meaning the number 4 corrupts yet another number for East Asians. In Lojban, "42" is pronounced vore with an audible e.
- 69 is the sex number and people often respond "nice" when they spot it.
- 88 is an unlucky number because it's a euphemism for "HH", short for "Heil Hitler".
- 99 is one below 100 and therefore taunts completionists. Islam has 99 Beautiful names for God, though the Quran contains more than 99. 99 is 33 * 3; an auspicious identity which is 1 short of the number of cantos in Dante's Divine Comedy.
Three Digits
- 167 sounds lewd in Cantonese.
- 168 sounds like "road of prosperity" in Mandarin.
- 169 sounds lewd in Cantonese. This is also 13*13.
- 328 sounds like "business will prosper" in Chinese.
- 413 is the Homestuck number, as the webcomic officially started on April 13th, 2009 [4/13/09].
- 420 is the weed number. Unlucky, as April 20th was Hitler's birthday.
- 616 is the number of the beast in some manuscripts of Revelation.
- 666 is the number of the beast for most manuscripts. It's considered a symbol of the Antichrist or Satan. In China it's actually one of the luckiest numbers as it sounds like "everything flowing smoothly".
- 777 is extremely lucky for gamblers.
- 888 is lucky in China, as it signifies wealth three times over.
Four Digits
- 1337 is an elite number, as 1,3,3,7 stands for l,e,e,t.
- 2000 and numbers closer to it, including those that are hundreds smaller or bigger, are mainly associated with years.
- 4233 is unlucky in Ancient Egyptian culture.
- 9001 is one over Nine THOUSAAAND!!
Five Digits and beyond
- 40,000-40,999 is grimdark and warful.
- 65,536 is 2^16 and called “Pannatthi” in Jainism.
- 4,294,967,296 is 2^32 and is called "Badaal" in Jainism.
- 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 is 2^64 and is very important to Jains, who call it "Ikathhi."
References
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