My last update to this blog, talked about the use of the number 30 to indicate the end of the story. Over the years that I’ve been doing this blog, I’ve discussed a lot of numbers while covering a number of subjects. Things may have just worked out that way, but I am often fascinated by numbers — I find them interesting. I have some favorite numbers, but I think pretty much all numbers are interesting for different reasons — just like people, they’re all interesting, some more so than others, but they’re all interesting — for different reasons.
In my mind, there is no perfect number, but in number theory there is such a thing: “A perfect number is a whole number, an integer greater than zero; and when you add up all the factors less than that number, you get that number.” Well, ok — but I just find real-world numbers more interesting. For instance, there’s a five second rule — we’ve all used it — we drop a cookie or something on the floor and if we pick it up within 5 seconds, it’s ok to eat. Why is it 5 seconds? Why not 6? Or 10 Or 20?
Back in the 1980s, the Pentagon became (more) famous for spending $435 for a hammer. It grabbed a lot of headlines for government excess — I wonder if the number had been $295 it would have gotten the same attention? Was $435 the actual cost or was that just what the press reported?
Had any 100 proof alcohol lately? Alcohol “proofs” have lots of numbers, all the way up to 200. What the heck is “proof” and what do the numbers mean? Putting proof labels on alcohol was brought about by British Sailors. In the 1700s members of the British Royal Navy were given an alcohol ration of half a pint of rum a day. The sailors often became suspicious that their superiors were watering down their supply. To test the rum’s potency, they doused a small pile of gunpowder with the rum and set it on fire. If the powder lit instantly, the sailors took it as “proof” that the rum was strong enough. If the gunpowder lit right away, it was deemed “100 percent proof” that it was ok. (Today we define proof as twice the percentage of alcohol by volume, although I kind of like the gunpowder method better.)
One number I’ve never completely understood is the nine-tenths of a cent tacked to the price of a gallon of gas. Why do they end in 0.9 cents? I’ve heard that it started in the 1920s when the gasoline tax was nine-tenths of a cent. That amount was just added to the price the gas station was charging. Anyhow, it just seems to be — I don’t know why.
Numbers play an interesting, and important, role in our lives. In keeping with the educational value of this blog, did you know that the Google name came from a number? The web site was named Google because of a misspelling of the word “googol.” Googol is a very large number (the number one followed by on hundred zeros.)
Once again, that’s “thirty.”
— 30 —