Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Is Twelve 12 (Part 1)

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Welcome to significant number factoid Friday.

Today the number is twelve and as usual it has a lot more associations that you might at first think. So many in fact that I have decided to split this post into two parts.

The second part (next Friday) will consist of the many entries in the ‘militaria’ section, while today’s will include the rest.

Even with the split it’s still a long post, but I hope those of you interested in numbers and their associations will enjoy reading it.

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The Number Twelve  12

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In religion

• The number 12 is very important in many religions, mainly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but also found in some other belief systems.
• From the Bible we know that Jacob had 12 sons, (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin), who were the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
• The New Testament describes twelve apostles of Jesus; after Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and hanged himself, a meeting was held (Acts) to add Matthias to complete the number twelve once more.
• The Book of Revelation contains much numerical symbolism, and a lot of the numbers mentioned have 12 as a divisor.
• Revelation 12:1 mentions a woman—interpreted as the people of Israel, the Church or the Virgin Mary—wearing a crown of twelve stars (representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel).
• Also there are 12,000 people sealed from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, making a total of 144,000 (which is the square of 12 multiplied by a thousand).

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• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
• In Orthodox Judaism, 12 signifies the age a girl matures (bat mitzvah)
• There are 12 days of Christmas; the period of thirteen days including Epiphany is sometimes known as Christmastide, thus Twelfth Night is another name for the twelfth day of Christmas or January 5 (the eve of Epiphany).
• Similarly, Eastern Orthodoxy observes 12 Great Feasts.
• In Twelver (or Imami) Shi’a Islam, there are twelve Imams, successors of the prophet Muhammad. These twelve early leaders of Islam were—Ali, Hasan, Husayn, and nine of Husayn’s descendants. Imamah is the Shi‘ah doctrine of religious, spiritual and political leadership of the Ummah. The Shi‘ah believe that the A’immah (“Imams”) are the true Caliphs or rightful successors of Muhammad, and Twelver and Isma‘ili Shi‘ah further that Imams are possessed of supernatural knowledge, authority, and infallibility as well as being part of the Ahl al-Bayt, the family of Muhammad. Both beliefs distinguish the Shi‘ah from Sunnis.
• In the Quran, the Sura number 12 is Sura Yusuf (Joseph), and it is located in Juz’a number 12. This Sura narrates the story of Prophet Yusuf and his 12 brothers.
• In Hinduism, the sun god Surya has 12 names. Also, there are 12 Petals in Anahata (Heart Chakra. There are twelve “Jyotirlingas” in Hindu Shaivism. The Shaivites (orthodox devotees of God Shiva) treat them with great respect and they are visited by almost every pious Hindu at least once in a lifetime.

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• In antiquity there are numerous magical/religious uses of twelves.
• Ancient Greek religion, the Twelve Olympians were the principal gods of the pantheon.
• Greek mythology has the twelve labors of Hercules.
• The chief Norse god, Odin, had 12 sons.
• Several sets of twelve cities are identified in history as a dodecapolis, the most familiar being the Etruscan League.
• In the King Arthur Legend, Arthur is said to have subdued 12 rebel princes and to have won 12 great battles against Saxon invaders.

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In mathematics

• Twelve is the smallest number with exactly six divisors, its divisors being 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12.
• Twelve is a sublime number, a number that has a perfect number of divisors, and the sum of its divisors is also a perfect number.
• Twelve is a superfactorial, being the product of the first three factorials.
• The first four positive integers show up in the following equation 12 = 3 × 4, which can be continued with the equation 56 = 7 × 8.
• A twelve-sided polygon is a dodecagon.
• A twelve-faced polyhedron is a dodecahedron.

• Regular cubes and octahedrons both have 12 edges, while regular icosahedrons have 12 vertices.
• The duodecimal system (1210 [twelve] = 1012), which is the use of 12 as a division factor for many ancient and medieval weights and measures, including hours, probably originates from Mesopotamia.
• In base thirteen and higher bases (such as hexadecimal), twelve is represented as C. In base 10, the number 12 is a Harshad number.

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In science and technology

• Twelve is the atomic number of magnesium in the periodic table.
• The human body has twelve cranial nerves.
• The duodenum (from Latin duodecim, “twelve”) is the first part of the small intestine, that is about twelve inches (30 cm) long. More precisely, this section of the intestine was measured not in inches but in fingerwidths. In fact, in German the name of the duodenum is Zwölffingerdarm and in Dutch the name is twaalfvingerige darm, both meaning “twelve-finger bowel”.
• Vitamin B12, also called cobalamin, is a water-soluble vitamin with a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system, and for the formation of blood. It is one of the eight B vitamins. The vitamin is the largest and most structurally complicated vitamin and can be produced industrially only through bacterial fermentation-synthesis.
• Dichlorodifluoromethane (R-12), a colorless gas usually sold under the brand name Freon-12, is a chlorofluorocarbon halomethane (CFC), used as a refrigerant and aerosol spray propellant. Complying with the Montreal Protocol, its manufacture was banned in the United States along with many other countries in 1996 due to concerns about damage to the ozone layer. It is soluble in many organic solvents. Dichlorodifluoromethane was also the main component of Silly String.

• Force 12 on the Beaufort wind force scale corresponds to the maximum wind speed of a hurricane.
• There are twelve function keys on most PC keyboards (F1 through F12)
• There are twelve keys in any standard digital telephone (1 through 9, 0, * and #)
• Microsoft’s Rich Text Format specification assigns numbers congruent to 12 mod 256 to variants of the French language.

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In space

• Messier object M12 is a magnitude 8.0 globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus.
• The New General Catalogue object NGC 12 is a magnitude 13.1 spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces.
• The 12th moon of Jupiter is Lysithea.
• Twelve people have walked on Earth’s moon.
• Telstar 12, is a commercial broadcast satellite used in telecommunications, operated by Loral Skynet. It is a Ku band satellite with coverage of North America as far West as Cleveland, Ohio, the majority of South America, Europe as far East as the United Arab Emirates and South Africa. Telstar 12 also has the capability to provide intercontinental connectivity including trans-Atlantic to the Mid-East.

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• Apollo 12
• Apollo 12 was the sixth manned flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon (an H type mission).
• It was launched on November 14, 1969 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, four months after Apollo 11. Mission commander Charles “Pete” Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit. The landing site for the mission was located in the southeastern portion of the Ocean of Storms.
• Unlike the first landing by Apollo 11, Conrad and Bean achieved a precise landing at their expected location, the site of the Surveyor 3 unmanned probe, which had landed on April 20, 1967. They carried the first color television camera to the lunar surface on an Apollo flight, but transmission was lost after Bean accidentally destroyed the camera by pointing it at the Sun. On one of two moonwalks, they visited the Surveyor, and removed some parts for return to Earth.
• The mission ended on November 24 with a successful splashdown.

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• STS-12 
• During the Space Shuttle program, several missions were cancelled. Many were cancelled as a result of the Challenger and the Columbia disasters. Many early missions were cancelled due to delays in the development of the shuttle. Others were cancelled because of changes in payload and missions requirements.
• STS-12 was originally scheduled for launch on 30 January 1981. The crew of three were to place the satellites TDRS-C and Anik-C2 into orbit during the 2-day mission. An alternate mission was also planned which replaced the TDRS-C with an Intelsat-V satellite, and would last five days instead of two. TDRS-C was eventually made as the replacement for the destroyed TDRS-B and launched from Discovery on STS-26 in September 1988.
• The crew of STS-12 were, Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr. (Commander); Michael L. Coats (Pilot); and Mission Specialists Richard M. Mullane, Steven A. Hawley and Judith A. Resnik.

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• Majestic 12
• According to UFO conspiracy theory, Majestic 12 (or MJ-12) is the supposed code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. The purpose of the committee was to investigate the recovery of a UFO north of Roswell, New Mexico during July 1947.
• Initial indications of such a group’s existence appeared in 1978 in declassified Canadian documents. Another reference to a classified group called “MJ-12” was discovered in 1980, but was later identified to be a hoax. In 1984 a set of documents was discovered in United States archives, which closely resemble real declassified documents, but which the FBI have declared to be “completely bogus”.
• UFO conspiracy theories and the popular media based on them sometimes incorporate Majestic 12.

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In politics

• The 12th President of the United States of America (1849–1850) was Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850). An American military leader, his 40-year military career ended with far-reaching victories in the Mexican–American War. His status as a national hero won him election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union, but he died 16 months into his term, before making any progress on the status of slavery, which had been inflaming tensions in Congress.

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• The Twelfth Amendment (Amendment XII) to the United States Constitution provides the procedure for electing the President and Vice President. It replaced Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, which provided the original procedure by which the Electoral College functioned. Problems with the original procedure arose in the elections of 1796 and 1800. The Twelfth Amendment was proposed by the Congress on December 9, 1803, and was ratified by the required number of state legislatures on June 15, 1804.
• The United States of America is divided into twelve Federal Reserve Districts (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco); American paper currency has serial numbers beginning with one of twelve different letters, A through L, representing the Federal Reserve Bank from which the currency originated.

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• There are 12 stars are featured on the Flag of Europe

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• The French department Aveyron is number twelve.
• In Northern Ireland the Twelfth of July is the main day of celebration and commemoration for the Protestant and Unionist community, and a public holiday.

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In sport

• The competition that was founded in 2001 as the Celtic League changed its name in 2011 to Pro12, reflecting its status as a 12-team league after it expanded in 2010 to include teams from Italy.
• The Southern Hemisphere competition now known as Super Rugby was known from 1996 through 2005, an era in which it had 12 teams, as Super 12.
• In both soccer and American football, the number 12 can be a symbolic reference to the fans because of the support they give to the 11 players on the field.
• Texas A&M University reserves the number 12 jersey for a walk-on player who represents the original “12th Man”, a fan who was asked to play when the team’s reserves were low in a college American football game in 1922.
• Bayern Munich, Hammarby, Feyenoord, Atlético Mineiro, Flamengo, Seattle Seahawks, Portsmouth and Cork City do not allow field players to wear the number 12 on their jersey because it is reserved for their supporters.
• The jersey number 12 has been retired by several North American sports teams in honor of past playing greats (or, in one case, a team’s fans):
• In Major League Baseball: the Tampa Bay Rays, for Hall of Famer Wade Boggs; the Toronto Blue Jays, for Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar.

• In the NFL: the Buffalo Bills, for Hall of Famer Jim Kelly; the Miami Dolphins, for Hall of Famer Bob Griese; the New York Jets, for Hall of Famer Joe Namath; the San Francisco 49ers, for John Brodie; the Seattle Seahawks, for their fans (the “12th Man”); the Dallas Cowboys have a policy of not retiring numbers, however, the team has not issued #12 since the retirement of Hall of Famer Roger Staubach; the Pittsburgh Steelers currently have a policy of not retiring numbers, having retired only one number (70) in their earlier history, however, the Steelers have not issued #12 since the retirement of Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw.

• In the NBA: the New York Knicks, for Dick Barnett; the Utah Jazz, for Hall of Famer John Stockton; the Cincinnati Royals, for Hall of Famer Maurice Stokes, who suffered a career-ending head injury in 1958, the team’s first season in Cincinnati and the franchise continues to honor the number in its current incarnation as the Sacramento Kings.

• In the NHL: he Detroit Red Wings, for Hall of Famer Sid Abel; the Montreal Canadiens, for Hall of Famers Yvan Cournoyer and Dickie Moore; the Vancouver Canucks, for Stan Smyl; the jersey number 12 has also been retired by the men’s basketball program of the University of North Carolina for Phil Ford.

• In Canadian football, 12 is the maximum number of players that can be on the field of play for each team at any time.
• In ten-pin bowling, 12 is the number of strikes needed for a perfect game.
• In curling, the House or the circular scoring area, is 12 feet in diameter.
• In cricket, another sport with eleven players per team, teams may select a “12th man”, who may replace an injured player for the purpose of fielding (but not batting, bowling or keeping wicket).
• In association football, 12 was also the number of teams in the finals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in its first two editions in 1991 and 1995.

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In books, music, movies and TV

• Books
• ‘Twelfth Night’ is a comedy by William Shakespeare.
• ‘Twelve Angry Men’ by Reginald Rose, was adapted from his own teleplay (see TV below).
• ‘The Twelve’ is a poem by Aleksandr Blok.
• ‘Twelve’ is a novel by Nick McDonell.
• ‘The Twelve Chairs’ is a satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov.
• ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ is a 1946 novel by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.
• ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ is a folk tale.
• ‘The Aeneid’, an epic poem by Virgil is divided into two halves composed of twelve books.
• ‘Paradise Lost’, an epic poem by John Milton is divided into twelve books perhaps in imitation of the Aeneid.
• In ‘The Hunger Games’, the fictional country of Panem is separated into twelve districts.

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• Music
• Twelve is the number of pitch classes in an octave; the total number of major keys; and the total number of minor keys.
• The twelfth is the interval of an octave and a fifth. Instruments such as the clarinet which behave as a stopped cylindrical pipe overblow at the twelfth.
• The twelve-tone technique (also dodecaphony) is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. Music using the technique is called twelve-tone music.
• One of the most famous classical music pieces is the 1812 overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
• The 12-inch single is a vinyl record format.
• B12 are a British electronic music duo consisting of Mike Golding and Steve Rutter.
• There is a group called ‘Twelve Girls Band’.
• ‘Twelfth Night’ is a progressive rock band.
• ‘12 Play’ is an R. Kelly album.
• ‘The Number 12 Looks Like You’ is a mathcore band.
• ‘Twelve’ is an album by Patti Smith.
• ‘Twelve Deadly Cyns…and Then Some’ is an album by Cyndi Lauper.
• ‘D12’ a rap group also known as the ‘Dirty Dozen’.
• There is a musical group named ‘12 Stones’.
• ‘12’, a Song from Brave Murder Day by Katatonia.
• ‘12’ is a studio album by German singer Herbert Grönemeyer.
• ‘12’ is the 12th studio album by Keller Williams.
• ‘12 Hundred’ is a song by band Mushroomhead of their Savior Sorrow album.
• ‘12’ (“Dodeka” in Greek) is one of the most well-known hits by Anna Vissi.
• ‘Twelve drummers drumming’ is the gift on the twelfth day of Christmas in the carol ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.
• ‘12:59 Lullaby’ by Bedouin Soundclash.
• ‘Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35’ by Bob Dylan.
• ‘Little 12 Toes’ by Chavez (band).
• ‘12 Hours’ by Davenport Cabinet.
• ‘12’ by Hot Chip.
• ‘Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses’ by Kathy Mattea.
• ‘Twelve Reasons Why’ by My Life Story.
• ‘Dozen Wicked Words’ by The Longpigs.
• ‘Prelude 12’ by Styx.
• ‘12:51’ by The Strokes.
• ‘12 Steps’ by Violent Femmes.
• ‘The 12th Of September’ by Xavier Rudd.
• ‘12 Fingers’ by Young the Giant.
• ‘12-Bar Original’ by The Beatles.
• Twelve is the number of studio albums ‘The Beatles’ released.

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• Movies
• Movies with the number twelve or its variations in their titles include
• 12
• 12.01
• 12 Angry Men (1957 and 1997)
• Cheaper by the Dozen
• Ocean’s Twelve
• 12 Monkeys
• The Dirty Dozen
• 12 Rounds
• Twelve

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• Television
• The number twelve plays a significant role in the television franchise Battlestar Galactica. The characters come from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and worship the twelve lords of Kobol. In the re-imagined series, there are also twelve models of the humanoid version of Cylons.
• Twelve Angry Men, the original 1954 live performance on the anthology television series Studio One.
• ‘Number 12 Looks Just Like You’ is an episode of the television show The Twilight Zone.
• Schoolhouse Rock! portrayed an alien child using base-twelve arithmetic in the short ‘Little Twelvetoes’.
• 12 Oz Mouse was an animated television show on Adult Swim.

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In transport

• Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior
• The Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior, more commonly known as the Lockheed 12 or L-12, is an eight-seat, six-passenger all-metal twin-engine transport aircraft of the late 1930s designed for use by small airlines, companies, and wealthy private individuals.
• A scaled-down version of the Lockheed Model 10 Electra, the Lockheed 12 was not popular as an airliner but was widely used as a corporate and government transport. Several were also used for testing new aviation technologies.
• Aviator Milo Burcham flew a Lockheed 12A in the 1937 Bendix Trophy Race from Burbank, California to Cleveland, Ohio. This 12A had been modified with extra fuel tanks in the cabin, allowing it to save time by making the entire 2,043-mile (3,288 km) trip non-stop. The 12A came in fifth at an average speed of 184 mph (296 km/h); this was an impressive performance, since the first and fourth-place winners were both privately owned Seversky P-35 fighters.
• Another Lockheed 12A, owned by Republic Oil Company and named The Texan, was modified by aviator Jimmie Mattern for a round-the-world flight attempt. Mattern filled the 12A’s cabin with fuel tanks and removed the cabin windows and door; the crew would enter the aircraft via a cockpit hatch. The aircraft was denied a U.S. permit for the flight following the Earhart incident (she had been flying a Lockheed 10 Electra), however it was pressed into action September 1937 in a long range search effort for Sigizmund Levanevsky who crashed somewhere between the North pole and Barrow, Alaska. “The Texan” was outfitted as a luxury transport afterward, and lost in a hangar fire in January 1938.

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• Hispano-Suiza J12
• The Hispano-Suiza J12 was a luxury automobile made by Hispano-Suiza from 1931 to 1938. It replaced the Hispano-Suiza H6. The J12 was powered by a V12 engine with pushrod-operated overhead valves.
• Hispano-Suiza suspended automobile production in 1938 to concentrate on the manufacture of aircraft engines.

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• Renault 12
• The Renault 12 is a family car produced by French automaker Renault between 1969 and 1980. Available as a saloon (Berline) and estate (Break), it was also produced under license in many countries across the globe into the early 21st century.
• In its first few years the 12 received praise from the European press for its spacious, comfortable interior, its styling, its performance and its low fuel consumption. However it fared worse in the North American press: in a test of the 1974 model, Road & Track was critical of the engine’s “obtrusive” noise, and called the heavy, non-power steering “a serious design flaw”. They also gave it “very poor marks” for the ventilation system.
• Renault 12 production and sales ended in western Europe in 1980, but the model continued to be produced and sold by Renault affiliates elsewhere. The last R12 was produced in 1999 in Turkey, whilst Romanian automaker Dacia continued producing the R12-based 1310 sedan and estate until 2004 and the R12-based Dacia Pick-Up until December 2006.
• In terms of sales the Renault 12 was a successful car, selling 2.5 million units.

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• McLaren M12
• The McLaren M12 was an open-cockpit racing car developed by Bruce McLaren Motor Racing in 1969, solely for the purpose of selling to customers in the Can-Am series.
• The M12 combined elements from two of McLaren’s previous efforts, the M6 series and the M8 series.
• One of the more notable owners of an M12 was Chaparral Cars, who used the McLaren in the early 1969 Can-Am season while their own model’s development had been delayed.

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• BMW E12
• The BMW E12 BMW 5-Series was made between 1972 and 1981. The E12 was the first series to bear the 5 Series name: the ‘5’ denoting BMW’s fifth ‘New Class’ platform. Designed as a replacement for the popular BMW New Class mid-size sedan, the E12 5-Series models were smaller than the large BMW E3 sedan but larger than the two-door 2002 models.
• The E12 was replaced by the BMW E28 5 Series in 1981, although production continued until 1984 in South Africa.

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• Volkswagen W12 Coupe
• The Volkswagen W12 Coupe (also known as the Volkswagen Nardò, with reference to the Nardò Ring vehicle test track, near to the Italian city of Nardò) was a concept car created by Volkswagen Passenger Cars in 1997.
• The car is portrayed in games such as Heat Online, Gran Turismo, and the Test Drive series.
• This car also featured in an April Fools joke as the new Volkswagen 2015 LeVanto.

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• Vector M12
• The Vector M12 was a vehicle designed by parent company Megatech LTD the Vector Motors Corporation, and was the first vehicle produced after the hostile takeover of the company from Jerry Wiegert by the Indonesian company Megatech.
• The vehicle was a rebodied Lamborghini Diablo with a chopper gun fiberglass body set on a lengthened Diablo chassis. It was a loose copy of the Vector AWX-3, which was not released due to the Megatech hostile takeover.
• The M12 was able to accelerate from zero to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 4.8 seconds and had a top speed of 189 mph (304 km/h) and was produced from 1995 to 1999, when production was halted, partly due to slow sales of the cars and alleged mismanagement of the company.
• The average price of the vehicle was $184,000 (USD). Today you can purchase a M12 normally for $65,000 to an astounding $189,000 paid by a purchaser of a purple M12 at Barrett Jackson for a record sale price.

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• Noble M12       
• The Noble M12 is a two-door, two-seat model, originally planned both as a coupe and as a convertible.
• All M12s have been powered by modified bi-turbocharged Ford Duratec V6 engines. The M12 has a full steel roll cage, steel frame, and G.R.P. (fibreglass) composite clam shell body parts.
• These famed “Ferrari killers” are extremely lightweight and stiff. Although looking to be track derived, the M12 performs very well on both road and track, with surprisingly good ride quality, but a rigid feel. This is achieved by having no anti-roll bars on the car. This allows the suspension to be stiff yet comfortable.

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• Ferrari F12 Berlinetta
• The Ferrari F12 berlinetta (also unofficially referred to as the F12 Berlinetta or the F12) is a front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive grand tourer produced by Italian sports car manufacturer Ferrari. The F12 Berlinetta, introduced to the public at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, replaces the Ferrari 599 series grand tourers.
• The F12berlinetta was named “The Supercar of the Year 2012” by car magazine Top Gear.

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• Spyker E12 Zagato
• Spyker Cars shareholder and CEO, Victor Muller hinted at a Maserati Quattroporte, Porsche Panamera rival with an eight-cylinder (the E8) or a twelve-cylinder (the E12) engine, but due to problems getting the D8 into production, the idea was ignored until recently when Muller has said he “believes now could be the time to resurrect the saloon.”
• Muller believes it will take about four years from time E8/E12 is revealed to the time it starts production. In March 2011, Muller stated that the production version of the Spyker E8/E12 will use a twelve-cylinder instead of the proposed eight-cylinder engine.

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• V12 engine
• A V12 engine is a V engine with 12 cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of six cylinders, usually but not always at a 60° angle to each other, with all 12 pistons driving a common crankshaft.
• Since each cylinder bank is essentially a straight-6, this configuration has perfect primary and secondary balance no matter which V angle is used and therefore needs no balance shafts. A V12 with two banks of six cylinders angled at 60°, 120° or 180° (with the latter configuration usually referred to as a flat-12) from each other has even firing with power pulses delivered twice as often per revolution as a straight-6.
• This allows for great refinement in a luxury car. In a racing car, the rotating parts can be made much lighter and thus more responsive, since there is no need to use counterweights on the crankshaft as is needed in a 90° V8 and less need for the inertial mass in a flywheel to smooth out the power delivery. In a large displacement, heavy-duty engine, a V12 can run slower than smaller engines, prolonging engine life.

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• W12 engine
• A W12 engine is a twelve cylinder piston internal combustion engine in a W configuration.
• W12 engines are manufactured in two distinct configurations. One configuration uses four rows of three cylinders merged into two ‘cylinder banks’ (two narrow-angle VR6 engine blocks), coupled to a common crankshaft – as in the Volkswagen Group W12. Another uses three banks of four cylinders coupled to a common crankshaft – as in the Napier Lion.

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Other stuff

• There are twelve basic hues in the color wheel; 3 primary colors (red, yellow, blue), 3 secondary colors (orange, green & purple) and 6 tertiary colors (names for these vary, but are intermediates between the primaries and secondaries).
• There are 12 ounces in a troy pound (used for precious metals)
• There are 12 signs of the zodiac.
• In English, twelve is the number of greatest magnitude that has just one syllable.
• There are normally twelve pairs of ribs in the human body.
• The Twelve Tables or Lex Duodecim Tabularum, more informally simply Duodecim Tabulae was the ancient legislation underlying Roman law.
• In the United States, twelve people are appointed to sit on a jury for felony trials in all but four states, and in federal and Washington, D.C. courts. The number of jurors gave the title to the play (and subsequent films) Twelve Angry Men.
• There are 12 inches in a foot.
• Twelve shillings made up one British pound in pre decimal currency.
• There are 12 face cards in a normal card deck.
• Alcoholics Anonymous has 12 steps, 12 traditions and 12 concepts for world service.
• Most calendar systems have twelve months in a year.
• The Western zodiac has twelve signs, as does the Chinese zodiac.
• The Chinese use a 12 year cycle for time-reckoning called Earthly Branches.
• There are twenty-four hours in a day, the hours being numbered from one to twelve for both the ante meridiem (a.m.) half of the day and the post meridiem (p.m.) half of the day. The basic units of time (60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours) can all perfectly divide by twelve.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Eleven 11

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The number for today’s Friday Factoid is eleven. If this is your lucky number, date of birth or if you are just interested in random facts, now is your chance to find out some things you probably didn’t know about the number eleven.

Enjoy!

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The Number Eleven 11

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In religion

• The word “apple” is cited 11 times in the Bible, all in the Old Testament.
• Moses was instructed to make curtains of goats’ hair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: “eleven curtains shalt thou make.” ( Exodus 26.7)
• 11 apostles remained with Jesus after the treason and suicide of Apostle Judas:
• After Judas Iscariot was disgraced, the remaining apostles of Jesus were sometimes described as “the Eleven”; this occurred even after Matthias was added to bring the number to 12, as in Acts 2:14.
• Jesus’ parable of the vineyard laborers: And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and says unto them, Why stand you here all the day idle? (Matthew 20.6)
• 11th Book of Enoch describes the Messianic Kingdom. 
• 11th Station of the Cross: Crucifixion of Jesus (14 Stations of the Cross, Via Dolorosa)
• 11 is a spiritually significant number in Thelema.

 

 

In mathematics

• If a number is divisible by 11, reversing its digits will result in another multiple of 11.
• As long as no two adjacent digits of a number added together exceed 9, then multiplying the number by 11, reversing the digits of the product, and dividing that new number by 11, will yield a number that is the reverse of the original number. (For example: 142,312 x 11 = 1,565,432. 2,345,651 / 11 = 213,241.)
• An 11-sided polygon is called a hendecagon or undecagon.

 

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In computing

• In Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Konqueror for KDE, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer for Windows, the function key F11 key toggles full screen viewing mode. In Mac OS X, F11 hides all open windows.
• The windowing system for Unix computers is known as X11.
• Computers of the PDP-11 series from Digital Equipment Corporation were informally referred to as “elevens”.

 

cpu room with DEC PDP-11

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In science

• 11 is the atomic number of sodium.
• 11 is the Atomic Weight of Boron, a black and semi-metallic element, chemically closer to silicon than to aluminium.
• In modern string theory physics, 11 dimensions are proposed to exist in the universe.

 

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In space

• Apollo 11 was the first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon.

• The approximate periodicity of a sunspot cycle is 11 years.
• Messier object M11, a magnitude 7.0 open cluster in the constellation Scutum, also known as the Wild Duck Cluster.

Messier object M11 – Wild Duck Cluster

• The New General Catalogue object NGC 11, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda
• The 11th moon of Jupiter is Himalia.

 

Himalia, the 11th Moon of Jupiter

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In politics

• 11th State to enter the Union is New York (July 26, 1788)
• The 11th President of the United States is James Polk (1795-1849) who served (1845-1849).

James Polk 11th President of the United States of America

• Polk was on the 11¢ stamp issued on September 8, 1938 in the Presidential Series.
• 11¢ stamps of the United States have also featured Presidents, Benjamin Franklin (issued Aug. 9, 1915) and Rutherford B. Hayes (issued Oct. 4, 1922)

 

11 cent stamps, Franklin, Polk, Hayes

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In Canada

• The stylized maple leaf on the Flag of Canada has 11 points.

• The Canadian one-dollar coin is a hendecagon, an 11-sided polygon.

Canadian one-dollar coin

• Clocks depicted on Canadian currency, for example the Canadian fifty-dollar bill, show 11:00.

Canadian fifty-dollar bill showing clock

• Eleven denominations of Canadian currency are produced in large quantities.
• Due to Canada’s federal nature, eleven legally distinct Crowns effectively exist in the country, with the Monarch being represented separately in each province, as well as at the federal level.

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In sport

• There are 11 players on a soccer team on the field at a time as well as in a cricket team.
• Also in soccer, a penalty kick is referred to as “Elfmeter” because the penalty spot is approximately 11m (precisely 12 yards) from the goal line.
• Historically, in the Pyramid formation that position names are taken from, a left wing-forward in football wears number 11. In the modern game, especially using the 4-4-2 formation, it is worn by a left-sided midfielder. Less commonly a striker will wear the shirt.
• There are 11 players in a field hockey team. The player wearing 11 will usually play on the left-hand side, as in soccer.
• An American football team also has 11 players on the field at one time during play. 11 is also worn by quarterbacks, kickers, punter and wide receivers in American football’s NFL.
• In rugby union, the starting left wing wears the 11 shirt.
• In cricket, the 11th batsman is usually the weakest batsman, at the end of the tail. He is primarily in the team for his bowling abilities.
• The jersey number 11 has been retired by several North American sports teams in honor of past playing greats or other key figures:
• In Major League Baseball: the Chicago White Sox, for Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio ( 2010 and 2011, Aparicio allowed fellow Venezuelan Omar Vizquel to wear the number); the Cincinnati Reds, for Hall of Famer Barry Larkin; the Detroit Tigers, for Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson; the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, for Jim Fregosi (who played for the team in its former incarnations as the Los Angeles Angels and California Angels, and also managed the California Angels); the Pittsburgh Pirates, for Hall of Famer Paul Waner; the San Francisco Giants, for Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell (honoring the number’s retirement when the team was known as the New York Giants); the Seattle Mariners have yet to retire any numbers, but have not issued #11 since the retirement of Edgar Martínez at the end of the 2004 season.

Baseball Hall of Fame Cincinnati Reds

• In the NBA: the Detroit Pistons, for Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas; the Sacramento Kings, for Hall of Famer Bob Davies (honoring the number’s retirement when the team was known as the Rochester Royals); the Washington Wizards, for Hall of Famer Elvin Hayes (who played for the team in its past incarnations as the Baltimore, Capital, and Washington Bullets);

Elvin Hayes

• In the NFL: the New York Giants, for Phil Simms.
• In the NHL: the Buffalo Sabres, for Hall of Famer Gilbert Perreault; the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers, for Hall of Famer Mark Messier; the St. Louis Blues, for Brian Sutter; the Washington Capitals, for Hall of Famer Mike Gartner.

 

Oilers and New York Rangers, for Hall of Famer Mark Messier

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In militaria

• World War I ended with an Armistice on November 11, 1918, which went into effect at 11:00 am, the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year. Armistice Day is still observed on November 11 of each year, although it is now called Veterans Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations and parts of Europe.

• 11 is the number of guns in a gun salute to U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps Brigadier Generals, and to Navy and Coast Guard Rear Admirals Lower Half.
• 11 is the number of General Orders for Sentries in the Marine Corps and United States Navy.

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• USN F11F Tiger
• The Grumman F11F/F-11 Tiger was a single-seat carrier-based United States Navy fighter aircraft in operation during the 1950s and 1960s. Originally designated the F11F Tiger in April 1955 under the pre-1962 Navy designation system, it was redesignated as F-11 Tiger under the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system.
• The F11F/F-11 was used by the Blue Angels flight team from 1957 to 1969. Grumman Aircraft Corporation made about 200 Tigers, with last delivered 23 January 1

The Grumman F11F/F-11 Tiger

 

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• J-11 Chinese Light Fighter Aircraft
• The J-11 designation was originally applied in the design Shenyang Aircraft Factory in response to a 1968 requirement for a replacement PLAAF J-6 (MiG-19 Farmer). Shenyang’s proposal was triggered by a British Spey 512 afterburning turbofan engine and followed a conventional light fighter design, with wings swept back and side of the fuselage assembly entries.
• The J-11 was a sophisticated design for its time, but the British Spey-512 engines proved “difficult” for Communist China to obtain at that time. Shenyang factory was ordered to concentrate their energies in the J-8, and J-11 never went beyond the planning stage.

 

J-11 Chinese Light Fighter Aircraft

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• The B-11 Gun
• The B-11 gun is designed by the Design Bureau under guidance of B.I. Shavyrin. Its barrel consists of a smooth-bore tube, chamber, breech and breech mechanism. It is fixed on a tripod mount consisting of frame and boom. In firing position, the gun rests on the tripod mount and the wheels are elevated above ground level. The gun is transported by means of a prime-mover.
• The gun can be transported in a truck body together with crew and ammo load. The gun can be also dropped by parachute.

 

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• Colt 1911
• Designed by John Browning, the M1911 Colt is arguably the most well known pistol in the world. It is a single-action, semi-automatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated handgun chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. It  served as the standard-issue side arm for the United States armed forces from 1911 to 1985 and was widely used in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
• The M1911 is still carried by some U.S. forces. Its formal designation as of 1940 was Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911 for the original Model of 1911 or Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911A1 for the M1911A1, adopted in 1924.
• In total, the United States procured around 2.7 million M1911 and M1911A1 pistols in military contracts during its service life. The M1911 was replaced by the M9 pistol as the standard U.S. sidearm in the early 1990s, but due to its popularity among users, it has not been completely phased out. Modern M1911 variants are still in use by some units within the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.
• Many military and law enforcement organizations in the United States and other countries continue to use (often modified) M1911A1 pistols including Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Los Angeles Police Department S.W.A.T. and L.A.P.D. S.I.S., the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, F.B.I. regional S.W.A.T. teams, and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta (Delta Force). The Tacoma, Washington Police Department selected the Kimber Pro Carry II or Pro Carry II HD as optional, department supplied weapons available to its officers

Colt 1911

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• Sig Sauer M11-A1
• Two of the most watched shows on television are NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. The 2nd spinoff show, NCIS: LA features covert NCIS agents based out of Los Angeles investigating things that have nothing to do with NCIS and regularly getting into gunfights and leaving bodies all over LA. And each week, they’re correctly depicted using the Sig Sauer M11, the standard issue pistol for NCIS, Army CID, and a number of other special units of the US military.
• The Sig Sauer M11-A1 is a commercially available version of the military sidearm; upgrading the slide to stainless steel and adding Sig’s excellent Short Reset Trigger. The Sig M11-A1 comes standard with three 15-round magazines, and SigLite night sights.

 

Sig Sauer M11-A1

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• Smith & Wesson Model 11 .38 Pistol
• The American Smith & Wesson .38 Model 11 Revolver was supplied to British Commonwealth countries 1950s – 1970s for Police use. A standard 6-shot hand ejector with 4” barrel, ‘Mod 11’ marking and flared chequered walnut grips.

Smith-and-Wesson-Model-11

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• In music, movies and television
• The interval of an octave and a fourth is an 11th.
• A complete 11th chord has almost every note of a diatonic scale.
• The number of thumb keys on a bassoon, not counting the whisper key. (A few bassoons have a 12th thumb key.)
• In Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, there are 11 consecutive repetitions of the same chord.
• In Tool’s song Jimmy, and in Negativland’s song Time Zones the number 11 is heard numerous times in the lyrics.
• “Eleven pipers piping” is the gift on the 11th day of Christmas in the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
• The Eleven is a song by The Grateful Dead.
• Eleven Records is the record label of Jason Webley, and many of Webley’s works feature the number 11.
• Three films, Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), have each won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture of their respective years.

ben hur action shot

• Ocean’s Eleven is the name of two American films.
• The Eleventh Commandment is a feature length film by Allied Pictures Corp. (1933) adapted from the story The Pillory by Brandon Fleming.
• The Eleventh Commandment (1962) is a science fiction novel by Lester del Rey (USA). In a heavily overpopulated future, the Roman Catholic Church continues to encourage people to be fruitful and multiply. But there is a scientific reason behind this apparent madness.
• The number of incarnations of The Doctor in BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who is 11, as of 2012. (William Hartnell; Patrick Troughton; Jon Pertwee; Tom Baker; Peter Davison; Colin Baker; Sylvester McCoy; Paul McGann; Christopher Eccleston; David Tennant and Matt Smith)

The 11 actors who have played ‘The Doctor’

 

 

 

Other stuff

• Cities located at 11o longitude: Munich, Germany; Monrovia, Liberia
• Cities located at 11o latitude: Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Baranquilla, Colombia
• The eleventh hour means the last possible moment to take care of something, and often implies a situation of urgent danger or emergency (see Doomsday clock).
• 11 days were lost when the British imposed the Gregorian calendar in 1752, decreeing that the day following September 2 be called September 14.
• “Elevenses” is a tea or coffee taken at midmorning and often accompanied by a snack (British custom).
• The number 11 bus is a low-cost way of sightseeing in London
• In the game of blackjack, an Ace can be counted as either one or 11, whichever is more advantageous for the player.

• 11 is the number of the French department Aude.
• 11 is the channel assignment of GMA News TV in the Philippines (formerly ZOE-TV 11). Both owned by ZOE Broadcasting Network and GMA Network.
• The Roman numeral for 11 is XI.
• Steel wedding anniversary celebrates 11 years of marriage.
• K is the 11th letter of the English alphabet .
• Kaph is the 11th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and means “grasping hand”, with a numeric value of 20.
• Lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, meaning service, with numeric value of 30
• In Astrology, Aquarius is the 11th astrological sign of the Zodiac.
• The dog is the 11th sign of the Chinese Animal Zodiac based on the lunar year. Dog-year people are honest, intelligent, and straightforward, with a deep sense of loyalty and justice. The previous dog year was Feb. 10, 1994 to Jan. 30, 1995. The next lunar dog year is Jan. 29, 2006 to Feb. 17, 2007. People born in the dog year include Voltaire, Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Chou En-lai, Sophia Loren, Elvis Presley, and Bill Clinton.
• The Cologne coat of arms depicts the two-headed Imperial eagle holding sword and sceptre. The escutcheon (shield) shows three crowns (relics of the Three Magi kept in the Cologne Cathedral). The 11 black flames stand for the Patron Saint Ursula protecting the 11,000 virgins. Hans Memling (1440-1494) painted “Saint Ursula and the Holy Virgins” (1489) on wood at Saint Ursula Shrine in Bruges. Memling reduced the 11,000 virgins to a more manageable 11.  
• German Rhineland carnival season begins on 11.11 at 11:11 A.M. in Cologne.

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9 / 11

• The twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City looked like the number 11.
• It was 110 stories tall, rising 1353 feet and was the tallest building in the world, until surpassed by Chicago’s Sears Tower (1450 feet).
• WTC was built in 1966-1977 by Minoru Yamasaki.

• American Airlines Flight 11 was a passenger flight which was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. They deliberately crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all 87 people aboard plus the hijackers, and an unconfirmed number in the building’s impact zone. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767-223ER, was flying American Airlines’ daily scheduled morning transcontinental service from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California.
• The second aircraft, a United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767–222, scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California, hit the South Tower at 09.03.

• After the World Trade Center was demolished by terrorist attack on 9/11/2001, ceremonies were held on subsequent 9/11 dates near the site showing “Tribute in Light”— twin beams of light that resemble the number 11 projected to the sky.      

 

 

 

 

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