Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today The Number Is Twenty-Eight 28

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

.

It’s been a few weeks since we had a numbers factoid. Today we are having a look at the number twenty-eight, so if that’s your lucky number or your date of birth or if you are just interested in numbers and things associated with them then read on.

And enjoy.

.

.

The Number Twenty-Eight 28

 

. 

In religion

• In Hebrew, the first verse of the Bible “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis I.1) has seven words and 28 letters.
• The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits. (Exodus, 26.2)
• The length of one curtain was twenty and eight cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: the curtains were all of one size. (Exodus, 36.9)
• In Chapter 28 in Genesis: Isaac blesses Jacob; Jacob’s Ladder; God’s promise; Stone of Bethel:

Artistic impression of Jacob’s Ladder

. 

.

In mathematics

• 28 is a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14.
• Twenty-eight is the second perfect number. As a perfect number, it is related to the Mersenne prime 7, since 22(23 – 1) = 28. The next perfect number is 496, the previous being 6.
• Twenty-eight is a harmonic divisor number, a happy number, a triangular number, a hexagonal number, and a centered nonagonal number.
• Twenty-eight is the ninth and last number in early Indian magic square of order 3.
• There are twenty-eight convex uniform honeycombs.

. 

. 

In science & technology

• 28 is the atomic mass of silicon and the atomic number of nickel.
• 28 is the molecular weight of nitrogen, (N2 = 28.02) and the molecular weight of carbon monoxide, (CO = 12 + 16 = 28.01); also interesting in that while carbon monoxide is poisonous, nitrogen is essential to life, yet they have the same molecular weight of 28 daltons.
• 28 is the fourth magic number in physics.
• The average human menstrual cycle is 28 days although no link has been established with the nightlighting and the Moon.
• Skin research has discovered that the epidermis is constantly regenerating itself, and all of its cells are replaced every 28 days.
• By the age of fourteen most people have 28 permanent teeth; the last four molars, the wisdom teeth, erupt only if the jaw allows space for them.
• The curing time of concrete is classically considered 28 days.

. 

. 

In space

• Our universe is 28 billion light years in distance from edge to edge.
• The revolution time of the surface of the Sun on itself is 28 days while its core is revolving in 33 days.
• The moon completes 4 phases once it has wandered through the 28 lunar mansions.
• 28 Bellona is a large main belt asteroid between Mars and Jupiter. Bellona was discovered by R. Luther on March 1, 1854. It is named after Bellona, the Roman goddess of war; the name was chosen to mark the beginning of the Crimean War. Its diameter is 120.9 km, rotation period of 15.7 hours, and orbital period of 4.63 years.
• The New General Catalogue object NGC 28, an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Phoenix.
• Messier object M28 is a magnitude 8.5 globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius.

Messier object m28

.

• STS-28
• STS-28 was the 30th NASA Space Shuttle mission, and the fourth dedicated to United States Department of Defense purposes. It was also the eighth flight of Space Shuttle Columbia.
• The mission launched on 8 August 1989 and traveled 2.1 million miles during 81 orbits of the Earth, before landing on runway 17 of Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 13 August.
• The mission details of STS-28 are classified, but the payload is widely believed to have been the first SDS-2 communications satellite.
• The crew consisted of Commander Brewster H. Shaw, Jr., Pilot Richard N. Richards, and three Mission Specialists, James C. Adamson, David C. Leestma and Mark N. Brown.

. 

• Space Shuttle Challenger
• One of the worst space related disasters happened on January 28 1986.
• On that fateful day Space Shuttle Challenger (mission STS-51-L) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members.
• The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida at 11:38 EST (16:38 UTC). Disintegration of the entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRBs aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter.
• The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. Although the exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown, several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. However, the shuttle had no escape system and the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.
• The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA’s organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident. NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol’s design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning and had failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors.
• What Rogers did not highlight was the fact the vehicle was never certified to operate in temperatures that low.
• Many viewed the launch live because of the presence of crew member Christa McAuliffe, the first member of the Teacher in Space Project and the (planned) first female teacher in space.
• The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.

. 

. 

In politics

• 28th President of the United States is Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who served (1913-1921). Wilson was President of Princeton University (1902-1910), where he graduated (1879) and taught as Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Economy (1890-1902). Wilson won the 1919 Peace Nobel Prize.

President Woodrow Wilson portrait December 2 1912

.

• 28th State to enter the Union is Texas (December 29, 1845)

. 

. 

In sport

• The jersey number 28 has been retired by several North American sports teams in honor of past playing greats or other key figures:
• In Major League Baseball: the Minnesota Twins, for Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven.

• In the NFL: the Chicago Bears, for Willie Galimore; the Kansas City Chiefs, for Abner Haynes; the New York Jets, for Hall of Famer Curtis Martin; the St. Louis Rams, for Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk.

• Car number twenty-eight was formerly run in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series by Yates Racing. The most notable driver was Davey Allison, who had the ride for his entire Cup Series career.

• Baseball’s 28th All-Star Game was played at Municipal Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri, on July 11, 1960.
• In the British game of cricket, the wicket is made of three wooden stakes each 28 inches high stuck into the ground.
• The widely used 6-6 domino set contains 28 pieces. 

. 

. 

In books, music and movies

• In Quebec, Canada, François Pérusse, made a parody of Wheel of Fortune in which all of the letters picked by the contestant were present 28 times. As a result, 28 became an almost Mythical number used by many Quebec youths, the phrase “Y’en a 28” (There are 28 [Letters]) became a running gag still used and recognized more than 15 years later.
• The Preludes, Opus 28 consists of Frédéric Chopin’s 24 preludes for piano, ordinarily but not necessarily played together in concert.
• 28 Days (2000) is a 104-minute movie directed by Betty Thomas and starring Sandra Bullock, Viggo Nortensen, Dominic West, Diane Ladd. A big-city newspaper columnist is forced to enter a drug and alcohol rehab center after ruining her sister’s wedding and crashing a stolen limousine.
• 28 Days Later (2002). Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.
• 28 Weeks Later (2007). Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes to plan.  
• 28 Hotel Rooms (2012). A novelist and an accountant meet while they are traveling for work, and though they both are in relationships, their one-night stand could become something more.

. 

. 

In militaria, shipping and aviation

• T-28 Trojan
• T-28 Trojan is a training military aircraft. In 1948 the U.S. Air Force originally acquired the T-28A as a trainer to replace the venerable AT-6. The T-28B and T-28C were acquired by the U.S. Navy and included a tailhook for carrier landing training. T-28 was shown on Card #15 of Topps Wings: Friend or Foe (1952).

 

.

• Miles M.28 Mercury
• The Miles M.28 Mercury was a British aircraft designed for either training or communications during the Second World War. It was a single-engine, monoplane of wooden construction with a twin tail and a tailwheel undercarriage with retractable main units.
• Originally, the M.28 had been planned as a replacement for the Whitney Straight and Monarch, but this was shelved when war broke out.
• In 1941, the project was revived in response to a requirement for a training and communications aircraft. The design was produced as a private venture by Ray Bournon using Miles’ normal wooden construction. The resulting machine introduced several features not found on trainers ncluding retractable undercarriage and trailing edge flaps. In the communications role, the M.28 had four seats and a range of 500 miles (800 km).
• Owing to Miles’ heavy commitment to war-production, however, only six aircraft were built, of slightly varying specifications, the last being the Mercury 6 which first flew in early 1946.  Examples were operated in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and Australia.

 .

• XB-28
• The North American XB-28 (NA-63) was an aircraft proposed by the North American Aviation to fill a strong need in the United States Army Air Corps for a high-altitude medium bomber. It never entered into full production, with only two aircraft having been built.

. 

• MiG-28
• The MiG-28 is a fictional aircraft that has appeared in several different unrelated works. These fictional aircraft have been independently created and the aircraft share nothing but a name.
• The first instance of a “MiG-28” was in the 1978 Quiller novel The Sinkiang Executive written by Adam Hall. Referred to in the work as the MiG-28D, it was an aircraft that resembled a somewhat modified MiG-25, but with sharper air intakes and swept wings.
• In the 1986 film Top Gun, Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) squared off against MiG-28s of unspecified nationality. These were actually US Northrop F-5s, which at the time were being used as aggressor aircraft for dissimilar air combat training at the real TOPGUN seminar (now known as the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School). The F-5s “acting” as MiG-28s were painted flat black to indicate their villainous status, and retained those paint jobs after production closed. The paint also increased the aircraft’s visibility, a plus for filmmaking.
• Another MiG-28 is “seen” in the 1988 ABC television series Supercarrier. This MiG-28 was a fictional Soviet stealth fighter. An F-16 fighter in Soviet-style markings was used to “simulate” the Soviet fighter.

Top Gun pretendy MiG-28

. 

• Fokker F-28 Fellowship
• The Fokker F28 Fellowship is a short range jet airliner designed developed in Holland (1964) and assembled by defunct Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. The Fokker F-28 Fellowship jet was to complement Fokker’s highly successful F-27 turboprop.
• Announced by Fokker in April 1962, production was a collaboration between a number of European companies, namely Fokker, MBB of West Germany, Fokker-VFW (also of Germany), and Short Brothers of Northern Ireland. There was also government money invested in the project, with the Dutch government providing 50% of Fokker’s stake and the West German government having 60% of the 35% German stake.
• In total 241 Fokker F-28s were sold, including 160 in commercial service and 10 used as corporate jets.
• The Fokker F-28 shown on a 40¡ Nauru stamp. Postage stamps with Fokker airplanes

. 

• Enstrom F-28
• The Enstrom F-28 and 280 are a family of small, light piston-engined helicopters produced by the Enstrom Helicopter Corporation.[1]
• Since delivering their first helicopter shortly after Federal Aviation Administration type certification of the F-28 model in April 1965, Enstrom helicopter has produced (as of 2007) approx 1,200 aircraft.[2]
• The company produces three models, the F-28, the more aerodynamic 280 and the turbine-engined 480, each with their own variants. The F-28 and 280 both use Lycoming piston engines virtually identical to those found in general aviation fixed-wing aircraft

. 

• T-28 Tank
• The Soviet T-28 multi-turret medium battle tank was among the world’s first medium tanks and became a symbol of the Red Army as was its heavier “brother” the T-35. Its silhouette is well known from pre-war newsreel about Soviet military parades in Moscow’s Red Square.
• 41 T-28 tanks were built in 1933 with hightest production of 131 in 1939. In the summer of 1941, the design of the T-28 became obsolete due to the drawbacks of multi-turret vehicles. The T-28 could hit any German tank from long distances.

 .

• The B28
• The B28, originally Mark 28, was a thermonuclear bomb carried by U.S. tactical fighter bombers and bomber aircraft. From 1962 to 1972 under the NATO nuclear weapons sharing program, American B28s also equipped six Europe-based Canadian CF-104 squadrons known as the RCAF Nuclear Strike Force. It was also supplied for delivery by UK-based Royal Air Force Valiant and Canberra aircraft assigned to NATO under the command of SACEUR. Also USN carrier based attack aircraft such as the A3D Skywarrior and the A4D Skyhawk were equipped with the MK 28.

 .

• HMS Kandahar (F28)
• HMS Kandahar (F28) was a K-class destroyer of the Royal Navy, named after the Afghan city of Kandahar.
• Kandahar was launched on 21 March 1939, and on 21 February 1941, in company with HMS Kimberley and HMS Manchester, she captured the German blockade runner SS Wahehe off Iceland. On 19 December 1941, she was part of British Force K, tasked to intercept an Italian convoy bound for Tripoli when she was irreparably damaged by a newly laid Italian mine whilst attempting to rescue the stricken HMS Neptune. She was scuttled the next day by Jaguar. 73 men went down with the ship.

. 

• HMS Cleopatra (F28)
• HMS Cleopatra (F28) was a Leander-class frigate of the Royal Navy, built at HMNB Devonport. She was launched on 25 March 1964 and commissioned on 4 January 1966.
• Upon Cleopatra’s commissioning, she joined the 2nd Destroyer Squadron, Far East Fleet and then participated in the Beira Patrol, which was designed to prevent oil reaching the landlocked Rhodesia via the then Portuguese colony of Mozambique (Lorenzo Marques).
• In 1969, Cleopatra was present at the Evans-Melbourne collision.
• In 1972, Cleopatra took part in escort duties during the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s South East Asia tour.
• In 1973, Cleopatra was dispatched to protect British trawlers against the Icelandic Coast Guard in the Second Cod War.
• Afterwards, Cleopatra began her modernisation, becoming the first Batch Two Leander to do so, which included the removal of her one twin 4.5-in gun to allow the addition of the Exocet anti-ship missile system.
• On 31 January 1992, Cleopatra was decommissioned. The following year, Cleopatra was sold for scrap.

 .

• Mosin–Nagant M/28
• The Mosin–Nagant is a bolt-action, internal magazine-fed, military rifle created under the government commission by Russian inventors, and used by the armed forces of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and various other nations.
• It has gone through many variations, the M/28 designed by the White Guard. The M/28 differs from the Army’s M/27 primarily in the barrel band design, which is a single piece compared to the M/27’s hinged band, and an improved trigger design. Barrels for the M/28 were initially purchased from SIG, and later from Tikkakoski and SAKO.
• The M/28-30 is an upgraded version of the M/28. The most noticeable modification is a new rear sight design.

.

• Smith & Wesson (S & W) Model 28
• The most famous handgun with the 28 designation is the Smith & Wesson (S & W) Model 28, also known as the Highway Patrolman. It is an N-frame revolver chambered for the .357 Magnum cartridge, in production from 1954 to 1986. It is a budget version of the S&W Model 27.

. 

.

Other stuff

• The Roman numeral for 28 is XXVIII.
• The Arab alphabet has 28 letters
• Cities located at 28o latitude include: New Delhi, India.
• Cities located at 28o longitude include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Pretoria, South Africa; and Istanbul, Turkey.
• 28 is not yet used as the code for international direct dial phone calls.
• Two Cleveland skyscrapers have 28 floors, the McDonald Investment Center (1969): East 9th St. at Superior Ave. (305 ft);and the Marriott at Key Tower (1991): 127 Public Square, Cleveland (320 ft)
• Parker Brothers Monopoly board game consists of 40 squares with 28 properties for sale. In the U.S. version, the properties are named after locations in Atlantic City, NJ.

• The Runik alphabet, also called Futhark, used by Germanic peoples of northern Europe, Britain, Scandinavia, and Iceland (3rd century to the 16th or 17th century AD) has 28 letters.
• In Gematriya, the system of Hebrew Numerology, the number 28 corresponds to the word koakh, meaning “power”, “energy”.
• The number of days in the shortest month of the Gregorian calendar, February (except in leap years, when there are twenty-nine).
• The Gregorian calendar follows a 28-year cycle for the most part, since there are seven days in a week and leap year generally occurs every four years; usually, a calendar from any year is the same as that from 28 years earlier (e.g., 2008 and 1980 or 2009 and 2037). However, that rule holds only when there have been exactly seven leap days in a 28-year interval; years divisible by 100 but not by 400 are not leap years. Indeed, 1900 (as well as 2100, 2200, etc.) does not use the same calendar as 1872 (2072, 2172, etc., respectively) for the simple reason that 1900 is not a leap year. In 28 years, any day-of-the-week and date combination occurs exactly four times. February 29 will fall on each day of the week once.
• In Jewish tradition there is a 28 year solar cycle in which the sun returns to its place in Creation every 28 solar years. This is commemorated in April every 28 years with the recitation of Birkat Hachama, the blessing of the sun.
• There are 28 wheels on a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy.

• 28 is the common name for the parrot ‘Barnardius zonarius semitorquatus’, widely distributed in Western Australia and South Australia, because its call sounds like “wenniate”.
• In neo-Nazi circles, twenty-eight indicates Blood and Honour (28 = BH – B – second letter of the alphabet and H – the eight letter).
• The number of Chinese constellations, “Xiu” or “mansions” (a literal translation), equivalent to the 12 western zodiac constellations.
• 28 is the postal code of the province of Madrid, in Spain.
• Twenty Eight is a popular game played in Kerala India.
• 28 is the number of the French department Eure-et-Loir.
• There are approximately twenty-eight grams in an ounce, a measure frequently used in the illegal drug trade.
• In horticulture the America and Cherish Roses have 28 orange pink petals; the Black Velvet Rose has 28 dark red petals; the Maestro Rose has 28 petals with a red center, pink edges and speckles; the Garden Party Rose has 28 white blend petals; and the Ophelia Rose has 28 light pink petals.

. 

=================================

.

Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Six 6

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

.

By special request, today’s significant number is the number six. My thanks to John in Australia for the suggestion, turns out it was a very interesting choice. So let’s get started. Enjoy.

.

.

The Number Six  6

.

.

In religion

• Chapter One of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament, tells us that the Creation was done over a six day period, and that man was created on day number 6. Moreover, six days were appointed to man for his labor, while one day is associated in sovereignty with the Lord God, as His rest.
• The serpent also was created on the sixth day.
• The Sixth Commandment relates to the worst sin – murder.
• The sixth clause of the Lord’s prayer treats of sin.
• There are six points on a Star of David.

Star of David

• There are six Orders of the Mishnah.
• Six symbolic foods are placed on the Passover Seder Plate.
• The Jewish holiday of Shavuot starts on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan.

.

• In Islam there are Six articles of belief
• Fasting six days of Shawwal, together with the month of Ramadan, is equivalent to fasting the whole year

.

• In Hindu theology, a trasarenu is the combination of 6 celestial paramanus (atoms)

.

.

In mathematics

• Six is the first number which is neither a square number nor a prime number.
• Six is the largest of the four all-Harshad numbers.
• There are six basic trigonometric functions.
• A cube has six faces.

• A hexagon is a regular polygon with six sides.
• A hexahedron is a polyhedron with six faces, with a cube being a special case.
• S6, with 720 elements, is the only finite symmetric group which has an outer automorphism. This automorphism allows us to construct a number of exceptional mathematical objects such as the S(5,6,12) Steiner system, the projective plane of order 4 and the Hoffman-Singleton graph.
• Six similar coins can be arranged around a central coin of the same radius so that each coin makes contact with the central one (and touches both its neighbors without a gap), but seven cannot be so arranged. This makes 6 the answer to the two-dimensional kissing number problem. The densest sphere packing of the plane is obtained by extending this pattern to the hexagonal lattice in which each circle touches just six others.

.

.

In science

• Six is the atomic number of carbon.
• A benzene molecule has a ring of six carbon atoms.
• The prefix “hexa-“ (Greek word for ‘six’) also occurs in the systematic name of many chemical compounds, such as “hexamethyl”.
• A hexamer is an oligomer made of six sub-units.
• Adenine is one of four bases that code for all life in deoxyribonucleic acid. Adenine’s molecular structure is based on a hexagonal ring bonded to a pentagonal ring.

• In the Standard Model of particle physics, there are six types of quark and six types of lepton.
• In statistical mechanics, the six-vertex model has six possible configurations of arrows at each vertex.
• The six-fold symmetry of snowflakes arises from the hexagonal crystal structure of ordinary ice.
• People with sexdactyly have six fingers on each hand.

• Six babies delivered in one birth are sextuplets.
• There are six tastes in traditional Indian Medicine called Ayurveda: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. These tastes are used to suggest a diet based on the symptoms of the body.
• Phase 6 is one of six pandemic influenza phases.
• The cells of a beehive honeycomb are 6-sided.

• Insects have 6 legs.
• The measuring instrument called a sextant got its name because its shape forms one-sixth of a whole circle.

.

.

In space

• The New General Catalogue object NGC 6 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda.
• Messier object M6, a magnitude 4.5 open cluster in the constellation Scorpius, also known as the Butterfly Cluster.

Messier object M6

• The gaseous planet Saturn has hexagonal clouds on its north pole discovered by Voyager 1 in 1977 and verified again in 2006 by the Cassini spacecraft, meaning this hexagon is a persistent structure on the scale of a planet.

Saturn’s hexagonal north pole clouds

.

• Apollo 6
• Apollo 6, the final unmanned mission of the United States Apollo Program, was launched on April 4, 1968. It was an A type mission and the second test flight for the Saturn V launch vehicle, intended to demonstrate full lunar injection capability of the Saturn V with a nearly full simulated payload, and also the capability of the Command Module’s heat shield to withstand a lunar-speed re-entry.

Apollo program insignia

• The mission was not designed to go to the moon, but merely to achieve a trans-lunar speed toward an imaginary point in space nowhere near the moon, then turn around and return in about 10 hours.
• However, fuel line failures in several Saturn V second and third stage engines prevented it from achieving lunar injection, but it was able to get close to lunar return velocity by using the Apollo spacecraft’s engine, as was done on Apollo 4, the first Saturn V test. Despite the engine failures, the flight nonetheless provided NASA with enough confidence in the Saturn V to use it for manned launches.
• Launch video

.

.

In politics

• Massachusetts was sixth to receive statehood on, Wednesday, February 6, 1788.
• The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• The sixth President of the United States of America was John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) who served from March 4, 1825 to March 4, 1829. His V.P. Was John C. Calhoun.

John Quincy Adams Sixth President of the United States of America

.

• The sixth Prime Minister of Australia was Sir Joseph Cook, (7 December 1860 – 30 July 1947). A coal miner from Silverdale, Staffordshire, Cook emigrated to Lithgow, New South Wales during the late 1880s, and became General-Secretary of the Western Miners Association in 1887.
• He was a founding member of the Australian Labor Party, and was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as Member for Hartley in 1891.
• Later Cook switched to the Free Trade Party, and was a minister in the cabinet of Premier George Reid from 1894 to 1899. During Australia’s first federal election in 1901, Cook was elected unopposed to the federal seat of Parramatta, and served as the deputy to Reid, then Alfred Deakin, following the creation of the Commonwealth Liberal Party from Cook’s and Deakin’s parties.
• As leader of the Liberal Party, Cook became Prime Minister following the 1913 elections; but he only had a one-seat majority in the lower house and no majority at all in the upper house, so he repeatedly sought to obtain a double dissolution. The outbreak of World War I just before the September 1914 election led to a Labor victory. Following a split in the Labor party in 1916, Cook joined William Morris Hughes’ Nationalist Party of Australia, and following the Nationalist victory in the 1917 election, served as Minister for the Navy, then Treasurer under Hughes.
• In 1921 Cook resigned from the federal parliament, and was appointed Australian High Commissioner in London. During 1928 and 1929, he headed the Royal Commission into South Australia as affected by Federation. He died in Sydney in 1947.

Joseph Cook sixth Prime Minister of Australia

.

• Australia has six states, Queensland (capital, Brisbane); New South Wales (capital, Sydney); Victoria (capital, Melbourne); Tasmania (capital, Hobart);        South Australia (capital, Adelaide); and Western Australia (capital, Perth). The Northern Territory (capital, Darwin), as the name implies, is classed as a ‘territory’, not a ‘state’.

Australia political map

.

• The ‘Six Counties’ is a term used to describe Northern Ireland which consists of the six north-eastern counties of the island of Ireland. It was created when Ireland was partitioned in 1921.  After a campaign of terrorism, murder and bombing lasting almost thirty years the London government (of first Conservative John Major and later Labour Tony Blair) along with the Clinton administration brought about a ‘peace’ agreement that saw terrorists installed as part of the Northern Ireland government in Belfast. This was done during the 1990s and pre the 9/11 terrorists attacks on New York when Americans got first hand experience of what terrorism was all about. It is questionable if a post 9/11 American administration would have been so keen to participate in appeasing terrorism.

.

.

In sport

• The National Basketball Association and National Hockey League have six divisions.
• The Original Six teams in the National Hockey League are Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Boston, and Detroit. They are the oldest remaining teams in the league, though not necessarily the first six; they comprised the entire league from 1942 to 1967.
• In American college football, there are six conferences that automatically qualify for Bowl Championship Series games.
• Six-man football is a variant of American or Canadian football, played by smaller schools with insufficient enrollment to field the traditional 11-man (American) or 12-man (Canadian) squad.
• In a football (soccer) game each side is allowed a maximum of three substitutes, making six in all.
• In ice hockey, six is the number of players per team, including the goaltender, that are on the ice at any one time, excluding penalty situations.
• In volleyball, six players from each team on each side play against each other.
• In some sports, six goals is known as a double-hat-trick, but is very hard to accomplish. A hat-trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times or more during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe H H Stephenson’s feat of taking three wickets in three balls. A collection was held for Stephenson, and he was presented with a hat bought with the proceeds. The term was used in print for the first time in 1878 and was eventually adopted by many other sports including association football, water polo, and team handball, but did not become popular in North America until the mid-1940s in the National Hockey League.
• In American and Canadian football, a touchdown earns 6 points.
• In Australian Rules football, six points are received for a goal.
• In cricket there are six balls to an over, and a “six” or “sixer” is a shot in which the ball clears the boundary without bouncing, scoring six runs.
• In rugby union, the starting blindside flanker wears jersey number 6. (Some teams use “left” and “right” flankers instead of “openside” and “blindside”, with 6 being worn by the starting left flanker.)
• In most rugby league competitions (but not the European Super League, which uses static squad numbering), the jersey number 6 is worn by the starting stand-off half (Southern Hemisphere term) or five-eighth (Northern Hemisphere term).
• In football (soccer) AC Milan retired shirt number 6 belonging to their legendary center back and captain Franco Baresi in 1997.

• In Britain, Arsenal retired the number 6 shirt after their long serving center back and captain Tony Adams retired in 2002.

• In Major League Baseball: the Atlanta Braves, for manager Bobby Cox; the Boston Red Sox, for Johnny Pesky; the Detroit Tigers, for Hall of Famer Al Kaline; the Minnesota Twins, for Tony Oliva; the St. Louis Cardinals, for Hall of Famer Stan Musial; the San Diego Padres, for Steve Garvey.

#6 Stan Musial

• In the NBA: the Boston Celtics, for Hall of Famer Bill Russell; the Orlando Magic, for their fans (the “sixth man”); the Philadelphia 76ers, for Hall of Famer Julius Erving; the Phoenix Suns, for Walter Davis; the Sacramento Kings, also for their fans.

Hall of Famer Julius Erving

• In the NFL: the Kansas City Chiefs, for Warren McVea.

Warren McVea

• In the NHL: the Detroit Red Wings, for Larry Aurie; the Pittsburgh Penguins, for Ian Ackerman; the Toronto Maple Leafs, for Hall of Famer Ace Bailey (the Leafs have a unique policy of not retiring numbers unless the player honored either died or suffered a career-ending incident while a member of the team. Bailey suffered a fractured skull during a game in 1933; while he recovered and lived for nearly 60 years after the incident, he never played again. The Leafs would issue the number to Ron Ellis in 1968 at Bailey’s personal request, and Ellis wore it until his own retirement in 1981.)

Hall Of Famer Ace Bailey

• In NASCAR, the number 6 is currently owned by Roush Fenway Racing. Since the 2007 season, the first year in which Roush Racing was merged with the Fenway Sports Group that owns the Boston Red Sox, the Cup Series version of the car has been driven by David Ragan. From 1988 to 2006, Mark Martin drove the #6 in the Cup Series for what was then Roush Racing.

Roush Fenway Racing #6 car

.

.

Cars and Bikes

• Yamaha YZF R6
• The Yamaha YZF R6 is a super sports bike, motorcycle manufactured by Yamaha Motor Company. The Yamaha comes with many sports bikes that are Yamaha R1, Yamaha FZ8, Yamaha R15 and Yamaha Vmax, Yamaha MT01 and more. The Yamaha YZF R6 is the one of the most advanced production in the 600cc segment from Yamaha. The Yamaha, bike manufacturer is flourishing in the Indian Market with the most stylish and delivers the best and advanced technology in India.

Yamaha YZF R6 Motorcycle

.

• Audi S6
• Easily distinguishable by the row of LED running lights that graces both sides of its front bumper, Audi’s sport-inspired version of its A6 executive saloon, the S6, has much more than visual cues to separate it from its little brothers. This four-door, five-passenger luxury sport sedan comes standard with the six-speed Tiptronic automatic transmission with steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters, Audi’s quattro AWD and a 435-hp, 5.2-liter V10 designed by Lamborghini.

Audi S6

.

• Mercedes 600
• During the resurgence of Germany from the rubble of WWII, after a tough post-war German automotive industry was recovering, and it was there that Mercedes Benz proposed making the car better representation of the world, whatever the cost. Work began in 1955 and after eight years of development the result was the Mercedes 600, also known as der Großer Mercedes, a car totally superlative in all respects. This was the car of choice of Presidents, Popes, dictators and billionaires.

Mercedes Benz 600 Pullman

.

.

In books, music, television & movies

• Six Graves to Munich by Mario Gianluigi Puzo, perhaps better known for his novels about the Mafia, including The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola.
•  Six Days Of The Condor, a thriller novel by James Grady first published in 1974 by W.W. Norton, is a suspense drama set in contemporary Washington, D.C., and is considerably different from the 1975 film version, Three Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. It was followed by a second novel by Grady titled Shadow of the Condor, released in 1978.

• Hexameter is a poetic form consisting of six metrical feet per line.
• Six Degrees of Separation is a movie about an affluent New York couple find their lives touched, intruded upon, and compelled by a mysterious young black man who is never quite who he says he is.
• Six Days Seven Nights is a movie starring Harrison Ford and Anne Heche.  Robin Monroe, a New York magazine editor, and the gruff pilot Quinn Harris must put aside their mutual dislike if they are to survive after crash landing on a deserted South Seas island.
• Six Days in June is a documentary about the Six Day War.
• Sixth Sense starring Bruce Willis is a movie about a boy who communicates with spirits that don’t know they’re dead seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist.

• Number 6 (Teresa Palmer) is a character in the movie I Am Number Four (2011).
• The Six Million Dollar Man, was an extremely popular sci-fi television series from the 1970s about former astronaut Steve Austin  crippled in an airplane crash but rebuilt using bionic components that gave him super-human strength and speed.

• The Bionic Six are the heroes of the eponymous animated series.
• A group of six musicians is called a sextet.
• There are 6 semitones in a tritone.
• A standard guitar has 6 strings.
• Most woodwind instruments have 6 basic holes or keys (e.g., bassoon, clarinet, pennywhistle, saxophone); these holes or keys are usually not given numbers or letters in the fingering charts.
• Les Six (“The Six” in English) was a group consisting of the French composers Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre in the 1920s.
• Bands with the number six in their name include Six Organs of Admittance, 6 O’clock Saints, Electric Six, Eve 6, Los Xey (sei is Basque for “six”), Out On Blue Six, Six In Six, Sixpence None the Richer, Slant 6, Vanity 6, and You Me At Six.
• #6 is the pseudonym of American musician Shawn Crahan, when performing with the band Slipknot.
• “Six geese a-laying” were given as a present on the sixth day in the popular Christmas carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.
• The concerti grossi Opus 3, organ concertos Opus 4 and Opus 7 (each) by Georg Frideric Handel.
• The sixth album by Dream Theater, Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, was based around the number six: the album has six songs, and the sixth song — that is, the complete second disc — explores the stories of six individuals suffering from various mental illnesses.
• Six is the second album by Mansun released in 1998. It takes its name in part from the main character in the television series The Prisoner, and from A. A. Milne’s poetry book, Now We Are Six.
• Patrick McGoohan played prisoner number 6 in the mysterious British television series called The Prisoner, catchphrase “I am a man, I am not a number”.

.

.

In militaria

• Carrier Air Wing Six
• Carrier Air Wing Six (CVW-6) was a United States Navy aircraft carrier air wing whose operational history spans from the years prior to World War II to the end of the Cold War, including participating in the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and the Vietnam War.
• When the unit was named “Air Group Six” during its time on the Enterprise, it was the Navy’s only carrier-based air group to carry out three complete tours of duty during World War II.
• It was based on 15 different carriers during its operational lifetime. The lineage of Carrier Air Wing Six can be traced to the Enterprise Air Group, created on 1 July 1938, which included the following squadrons and aircraft:
• Bombing Six (VB-6) — 18 Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bombers
• Fighting Six (VF-6) — 18 Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighter
• Scouting Six (VS-6) — 18 Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber
• Torpedo Six (VT-6) — 18 Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber

Enterprise Air Group

.

• Douglas DC-6
• The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and transport aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with the Lockheed Constellation in the long-range commercial transport market.
• More than 700 were built and many still fly today in cargo, military and wildfire control roles.
• The DC-6 was known as the C-118 Liftmaster in United States Air Force service and as the R6D in United States Navy service prior to 1962, after which all U.S. Navy variants were also designated as the C-118.

.

• Shenyang F-6
• The F-6 was a Chinese copy of the MiG-19S Farmer-C cannon-armed day fighter. From the late 1960s to the final batch in 1971, a total of more than 70 F-6s were reported delivered, equipping six squadrons at 3 bases, for both interceptor and attack duties. Some of the 1971 batch were late production F-6C version, featuring a prominent braking parachute housing at the base of the rudder.
• A few FT-6 two-seat trainers also appear to have been supplied. The FT-6 wasn’t certified for production until December 1973, so these examples must have been delivered after this date. It is also reported that 4 F-6 aircraft are fitted with ventral cameras for the reconnaissance role – whether these are export versions of the JZ-6 or local conversions is not known.

.

• Beechcraft T-6 Texan II
• Developed from the Pilatus PC-9, the Beechcraft T-6 Texan II is a single-engined turboprop aircraft built by the Raytheon Aircraft Company (now Hawker Beechcraft). The T-6 is used by the United States Air Force for basic pilot training and by the United States Navy for Primary and Intermediate Joint Naval Flight Officer (NFO) and Air Force Combat Systems Officer (CSO) training. It has replaced the Air Force’s T-37B Tweet and is replacing the Navy’s T-34C Turbo Mentor.
• The T-6A is also used as a basic trainer by the Royal Canadian Air Force (CT-156 Harvard II), the German Air Force, the Greek Air Force, the Israeli Air Force (Efroni), and the Iraqi Air Force.

.

• AT-6
• As well as being an initial trainer, the multirole Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 is capable of performing missions including: net-centric ISR with the ability for precise geo-registration, streaming video and datalinks, light attack including combat search and rescue (CSAR), close air support, forward air control and convoy escort, homeland defense (border security), port security, counter-narcotics operations and civil missions such as disaster area reconnaissance, search and rescue and firefighting. There are tandem HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) controls fore and aft for pilot and instructor.
• Hawker Beechcraft showcased the AT-6 at the Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough International Airshow in the UK in 2010.

.

• Fiat L6/40
• The Fiat L6/40 was a light tank used by the Italian army from 1940 and on through World War II. It was designed by Fiat-Ansaldo as an export product, and was adopted by the Italian Army when officials learned of the design and expressed interest. It was the main tank employed by the Italian forces fighting on the Eastern Front alongside the L6/40-based Semovente 47/32 self-propelled gun. L6/40s were also used in the North African campaign.
• The official Italian designation was Carro Armato (“armored tank”) L 6/40. This designation is understood as follows: “L” for Leggero (Italian: “light”), followed by the weight in tons (6) and the year of adoption (1940).

.

• Ordnance QF 6 pounder
• The Ordnance Quick-Firing 6-pounder 7 cwt, or just 6 pounder, was a British 57 mm gun, their primary anti-tank gun during the middle of World War II, as well as the main armament for a number of armoured fighting vehicles.
• It was first used in North Africa in April 1942, and quickly replaced the 2 pounder in the anti-tank role, allowing the 25 pounder to revert to its intended artillery role.
• The United States Army also adopted the 6 pounder as their primary anti-tank gun under the designation 57 mm Gun M1.

.

• The Six Gun
• Whilst not actually a firearm as such, the term ‘six gun’ or ‘six shooter’ is a general, if inaccurate, description of a revolver. The original name came from the fact that the majority of the early revolvers had a cylindrical bullet magazine that held six rounds of ammunition.

• However, modern revolvers come in a variety of capacities including 5 round, 6 round, 8 round and 10 round. An example being the Smith & Wesson Model 617 is a 10 round capacity .22LR revolver shown below.

.

.

Six Million

• The Holocaust, also known by the Biblical word Shoah (which means calamity), was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II. Led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, it was part of a program of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany throughout German-occupied territory.
• Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed. Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.
• Some scholars argue that the mass murder of the Romani and people with disabilities should be included in the definition, and some use the term “holocaust” to describe other mass murders, including those of Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, and homosexuals. Recent estimates based on figures obtained since the fall of the Soviet Union indicates some ten to eleven million civilians and prisoners of war were intentionally murdered by the Nazi regime.
• The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. Various laws to remove the Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws, were enacted in Germany years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were subjected to slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. The occupiers required Jews and Romani to be confined in overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. Every arm of Germany’s bureaucracy was involved in the logistics that led to the genocides, turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust scholar has called “a genocidal state”.
• There are numerous Holocaust Memorials throughout the world, including in Jerusalem, Washington, and Berlin, Germany.

.

• However, it was not the German Nazis, but the Croatian Ustase who were responsible for some of the most bloody and sadistic crimes carried out against the Orthodox population in Croatia. Some of their crimes so heinous that they even appalled the Nazis.
• The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats massacred and sadistically tortured to death has been estimated at approximately three hundred thousand.
• The legacy of the brutality of this genocidal campaign still affects the political situation in that part of Europe.

.

• Think it could never happen again? Don’t be too sure. In 1994 in Rwanda, Africa somewhere in the region of one million people were murdered by the Interahamwe death squads in a genocidal campaign. Local officials assisted in rounding up victims and making suitable places available for their slaughter. Tutsi men, women, children and babies were killed in thousands in schools. They were also killed in churches with the collusion of some clergy. The victims, in their last moments alive, were also faced by another appalling fact, namely that their cold-blooded killers were people they knew – neighbors, work-mates, former friends, sometimes even relatives through marriage.

.

.

Finally, other stuff

• There are said to be no more than ‘six degrees of separation’ between any two people on Earth.
• Extra-sensory perception is sometimes called the ‘sixth sense’.
• Six Cardinal Directions: north, south, east, west, up, and down.
• The number of sides on a cube, hence the highest number on a standard die.
• The highest number on one end of a standard domino.
• ‘Six’ is used as an informal slang term for the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, the one Ian Fleming’s fictious character James Bond works for.
• Six is the number of cans of soda or beer in a ‘six-pack’.
• A ‘six pack’ refers to the appearance of well developed stomach muscles.
• The term ‘six pack’ also refers to the number of fundamental flight instruments lumped together on a cockpit display.
• ‘Six Flags’ is the name of a series of amusement parks and theme parks.

• ‘Six of the best’ is a slang term for corporal punishment particularly in schools where the offending pupil was given six slaps with a cane.
• A ‘sixer’ is the name of the leader of the smallest group of Cub Scouts, traditionally consisting of six people.
• Six is the number of feet below ground level where a coffin is traditionally buried, thus also leading to the phrase ‘six feet under’ meaning that a person, or thing, or concept is dead.
• In the ancient Roman calendar, Sextilis was the sixth month. After the Julian reform, June became the sixth month and Sextilis was renamed August.
• Sextidi was the sixth day of the decade in the French Revolutionary calendar.
• ‘L’Hexagone’ is a French nickname for the continental part of Metropolitan France.
• A ‘hex nut’ is a nut with six sides, and a hex bolt has a six-sided head.
• On most phones, the 6 key is associated with the letters M, N, and O, but on the BlackBerry it is the key for J and K, and on the BlackBerry 8700 series and Curve 8900 with full keyboard, it is the key for F.
• The ‘6 meter band’ in amateur radio includes the frequencies from 50 to 54 MHz.
• 6 is the resin identification code used in recycling to identify polystyrene.
• In Astrology, Virgo is the 6th astrological sign of the Zodiac.
• There are six dots in a Braille cell.

• The Six Dynasties form part of Chinese history.
• 6 is a lucky number in Chinese culture.
• The unit of measurement used for the Great Pyramid was the inch and its sexagesimal multiples. The first multiple is the foot, 12 inches (2×6); and after this the rises are 18 (3 x 6), 24 (4×6), 30 (5 x 6), and 36 (6×6 or one yard).
• Natural time-spaces are also based on multiples of six, there are 12 months in a year, a day consists of 24 hours (4 x 6),  hours are 60 minutes (6×10), and minutes made up of 60 seconds (6×10).

===========================

.

Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Fifty-Two 52

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

. 

They’ve been ‘beautiful’,  they’ve been ‘big’  and they’ve been ‘unusual’.  Today we have another ‘significant’ number, fifty-two, so-called because of its use and the beliefs surrounding it.

Enjoy.

. 

 .

52 Fifty-Two

 

Fifty-two first came to mind because it is the number of weeks in a year. Simple enough. But, as usual, with these significant numbers there is more to fifty-two than you might at first imagine.

. 

In Religion

• The 52nd word of the King James Version of the Bible’s Old Testament Genesis is ‘God’
• Saint Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, is believed to have landed in Kodungallur, India to preach the Gospel.
• Nag Hammadi is a set of 52 religious & philosophical texts, hidden in an earthenware jar for 1,600 years, and accidentally unearthed in the village of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in December 1945. Written in Coptic, this corpus of 1200 pages include the Gospel of Thomas recording the secret sayings of Christ. 

Nag Hammadi

• The ancient Mexicans divided the time in periods of 52 years, waiting the end of the world to the term of each of they. It is the number of the Aztec century, 13 x 4, called the small cycle. We find it in the ligature of the years for the duration of the suns, in particular the first and the fourth sun, which have a duration of 676 years, are considered as being the most perfect since they contain only the two numbers 13 and 52 whose product gives 676.

• The Mayan Calendar moves through a complete cycle every 52 years. (until near the end of December this year GULP!)

.

.

In Mathematics

• Fifty-two is the 6th Bell number and a decagonal number.
• It is an untouchable number, since it is never the sum of proper divisors of any number, and it is a noncototient since it is never the answer to the equation x – f(x).
• The number of different ways a complete pack of playing cards may be rearranged is 52! or 52 factorial which is 52 x 51 x 50 x 49 x…
• This number is very large; For example it would take light approximately 14 billion billion billion billion billion billion years to travel 52! miles.

. 

 .

In Science

• The Atomic Number of Tellurium (semi-metallic with silvery lustrous grey color) is 52 
• Atomic Weight of Chromium (Cr) is 52 

.

. 

In Space 

• Messier object M52, a magnitude 8.0 open cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia

Messier object M52

.

.

In Sport

• For over twenty years, 52 was the best-known car number of retired NASCAR driver Jimmy Means.

Jimmy Means Racing

 

• Ray Lewis, is possibly the most famous sportsman to currently wear the number 52 jersey. He plays for the Baltimore Ravens, is a dominant linebacker and force on the premier defense in the NFL. He also has a really unique (and entertaining,) dance he does when entering the stadium field.

 

• But perhaps the most interesting story is that of Michael Lewis “Iron Mike” Webster who was an American football player who played center in the National Football League from 1974 to 1990 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “Iron Mike” anchored the Steelers’ offensive line during much of their run of four Super Bowl victories from 1974 to 1979 and is considered by some as the best center in NFL history.
• His career ended after the 1990 season, with a total of 245 games played at center. At the time of his retirement, he was the last active player in the NFL to have played on all four Super Bowl winning teams of the 1970s Steelers. He played more seasons as a Steeler than anyone in franchise history (15 seasons), one season ahead of Hines Ward.
• While the Steelers no longer officially retire jerseys, Webster’s #52 has not been reissued by the team since he retired and it is generally understood that no Steeler will wear that number again.
• Webster was proven to have been disabled before retiring from the NFL. After retirement, he  suffered from amnesia, dementia, depression, and acute bone and muscle pain. He lived out of his pickup truck or in train stations between Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, even though his friends and former teammates were willing to rent apartments for him. In his last years Webster lived with his youngest son, Garrett, who though only a teenager at the time, had to act as the parent to his father. Webster’s wife divorced him six months before his death in 2002. He was only 50 years old.
• Webster is quoted as an example of the difficulties American football players suffer when their careers are over. Other players who retired because of the effects of concussion or other head injuries include Johnny Unitas, Roger Staubach, Merril Hoge, Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Dave Pear, Wayne Chrebet, and Al Toon.
• After his death, Mike Webster was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease. Bennet Omalu, a forensic neuropathologist, examined tissue from Webster and eight other NFL players and determined they all showed the kind of brain damage previously seen in people with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, as well as in some retired boxers. Omalu’s findings were largely ignored by the NFL until Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry was diagnosed with CTE shortly after his death in 2009.
• It has been speculated that Webster’s ailments were due to wear and tear sustained over his playing career; some doctors estimated he had been in the equivalent of “25,000 automobile crashes” in over 25 years of playing football at high school, college and professional levels.
• Webster’s estate brought a lawsuit in Maryland’s U.S. District Court against the National Football League. The estate contended that Webster was disabled at the time of his retirement, and was owed $1.142 million in disability payments under the NFL’s retirement plan. On April 26, 2005, a federal judge ruled that the NFL benefits plan owed Webster’s estate $1.18 million in benefits. With the addition of interest and fees, that amount was estimated to exceed $1.60 million. The NFL appealed the ruling, but on December 13, 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia affirmed the Baltimore federal judge’s 2005 ruling that the league’s retirement plan must pay benefits reserved for players whose disabilities began while they were still playing football.

Iron Mike Webster

 .

 .

In Militaria

The B-52

• By far the best know aircraft with the 52 designation is the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. It is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber, built to carry nuclear weapons for Cold War-era deterrence missions, and was a replacement for the Convair B-36.
• It has been operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) since the 1955. The bomber carries up to 70,000 pounds (32,000 kg) of weapons.
• Beginning with their successful contract bid in June 1946, the Boeing B-52 design evolved from a straight-wing aircraft powered by six turboprop engines to the final prototype YB-52 with eight turbojet engines and swept wings.
• The B-52 took its maiden flight in April 1952. Although a veteran of several wars, the Stratofortress has dropped only conventional munitions in combat. Its Stratofortress name is rarely used outside of official contexts; it has been referred to by Air Force personnel as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat/Flying Fucker/Fellow).
• Superior performance at high subsonic speeds and relatively low operating costs have kept the B-52 in service despite the advent of later aircraft, including the cancelled Mach 3 North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the variable-geometry Rockwell B-1B Lancer, and the stealthy Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.
• The B-52 marked its 50th anniversary of continuous service with its original operator in 2005 and after being upgraded between 2013 and 2015 it will serve into the 2040s.

B-52 in flight and on the ground with ordnance display

 .

 The Junkers Ju 52

• The Junkers Ju 52 (nicknamed Tante Ju (“Auntie Ju”) and Iron Annie) was a German trimotor transport aircraft manufactured from 1932 to 1945.
• It saw both civilian and military service during the 1930s and 1940s.
• In a civilian role, it flew with over 12 air carriers including Swissair and Deutsche Luft Hansa as an airliner and freight hauler.
• In a military role, it flew with the Luftwaffe as a troop and cargo transport and briefly as a medium bomber.
• The Ju 52 continued in postwar service with military and civilian air fleets well into the 1980s.

Junkers Ju 52

 

.

Ka-52

• Another notable air machine with the 52 designation is the multi-role all-weather combat Ka-52 “Alligator” helicopter.  First revealed at 1995 Paris Air Show, this is a twin-seat derivative of the attack Ka-50. It is intended for a wide range of combat tasks in daytime and night conditions, in any time of the year with the use of all destruction means of the Ka-50.
• The Ka-52 has a coaxial design with unique manoeuvrability that allows the helicopter to perform combat maneuvers within the minimum air area and the shortest time to gain an advantageous attack position.
• From the point of view of the weapons power the “Alligator” is comparable with the “Black Shark” helicopter and is superior to all existing combat helicopters.

The multi-role all-weather combat Ka-52 ‘Alligator’ helicopter

.

USS Barry (DDG 52)

• The fourth ‘Barry’, the DDG 52, was launched on 10 May 1991 by Ingalls Shipbuilding Inc. and was commissioned into the U.S. Atlantic Fleet on 12 December 1992.
• The USS Barry DDG 52 has taken part in Operation Support Democracy in Haiti in November 1993; the backdrop for the 50th anniversary of D-Day in the Mediterranean in 1994; the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas served as “Red Crown” in support of the No-Fly Zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina; the Persian Gulf in 1994 in response to Iraq’s massing of troops on the Kuwaiti border; Operation Vigilant Warriors escort of both the George Washington and an amphibious assault group to anchorage off Kuwait City and as alternate Persian Gulf Anti-Air Warfare Coordinator (AAWC), and principal Tomahawk strike platform during the crisis. 
• The USS Barry received a Meritorious Unit Commendation, the Southwest Asia Service Medal, the Armed Forces Service Medal, and the NATO Medal for her actions
• In October of 2004, Barry was again in the Persian Gulf in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom as part of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) Carrier Strike Group and also participated in Somalia Operations in the Horn of Africa (HOA).

USS Barry DDG52

 .  

CZ 52

• The CZ 52 (also known by the Czechoslovakian military designations vz. 52, for “model of 1952”, and CZ 482) is a semi-automatic pistol designed by two brothers, Jan and Jaroslav Kratochvíl, in the early 1950s for the Czechoslovakian military.
• Around 200,000 vz. 52s were made by Ceská Zbrojovka in Strakonice from 1952 to 1954.
• The vz. 52 replaced the 7.65 mm Browning caliber (.32 ACP) Vz.50, which had acquired a reputation for unreliability and was underpowered for its role as a military service sidearm.
• After 30 years of military service, the vz. 52 was eventually replaced by the 9x18mm Makarov caliber vz. 82. Cz-USA began exporting to the US market in January 1998 with the designation CZ 52.

The Czech CZ-52 semi-automatic pistol

 

.

AA-52

• The AA-52 (full designation in French: Arme Automatique Transformable Modèle 1952, “Transformable automatic weapon model 1952”), also known as “La Nana” is one of the first French-produced guns of the post-World War II era.
• It was manufactured by the French government-owned MAS company.
• The AA-52 is still used today as a vehicle-mounted weapon due to large quantities in service, but has been replaced in the helicopter role by the Belgian FN MAG, starting with the EC 725 Caracal of the Special Operations units and the Air Force Search and Rescue teams.
• The AA-52 had been largely phased out for infantry use in favour of the lighter FN Minimi. The AA-52 is still in use in Afghanistan.

Arme Automatique Transformable Modèle 1952

. 

British Army

• Part of the British Army forces is 52 Infantry Brigade which has a proud and long history as a fighting brigade.
• Its reputation during both the World Wars earned it the nickname of ‘The Fighting 52nd’ and its recent deployment to Afghanistan enabled the Brigade to re-establish its fighting credentials as one of the British Army’s fully deployable Type A Brigades.

52 Infantry Brigade ‘The Fighting 52nd’

 . 

US Army

• The 52nd Infantry Regiment
• The 52nd Infantry Regiment (“Ready Rifles”) is an infantry unit of the United States Army.
• The coat of arms was originally approved for the 52d Infantry Regiment on June 29, 1921. It was redesignated for the 52d Armored Infantry Regiment on September 29, 1942. The insignia was redesignated for the 52d Armored Infantry Battalion on January 6, 1944.
• It was redesignated for the 52d Infantry Regiment on October 31, 1958.

52d Infantry Regimental Colors with streamers

 

.

• 1st Battalion, 52d Aviation Regiment
• The 1st Battalion, 52d Aviation Regiment is known as the “Flying Dragons.”
• The battalion headquarters is located at Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
• The battalion provides aviation support to USARAK (United States Army Alaska) with UH-60A Blackhawks and CH-47 Chinooks. On order, deploy and conduct full spectrum aviation operations in support of Combatant Commanders.

52d Aviation Regiment “Flying Dragons” patch

 

 . 

Other Stuff 

• A standard piano has 52 white keys

 

• Fifty-two is the approximate number of weeks in a year. 52 weeks is 364 days, while the tropical year is 365.24 days long. According to ISO 8601, most years have 52 weeks while some have 53.

 

• There are 52 cards in a standard deck of playing cards, not counting Jokers or advertisement cards

 

• There is a 52 Plus Joker Club that was formed to facilitate, the collection and trading of antique and collectible playing cards and related items; the advancement of knowledge about the history, manufacture and artistic aspect of playing cards; and the promotion of fellowship among members with similar interests.

 

• DC Comics has a weekly comic series entitled 52 that has 52 issues, with a plot spanning one full year.

 

• In finance one of the vital statistics always quoted in stocks/shares summaries is the 52 week High/Low trading price

 

• Patolli is an Aztec board game utilizing 52 squares arranged in a cross form. Its name came from the Aztec word for bean— patolli, meaning fava or kidney bean. The game is played on a curious diagonal cross-shaped board with red and blue markers and five beans (or occasionally four beans) as dice. The game’s goal is to return the pieces back to the original starting position. Patolli was most likely also used in a religious and ritualistic sense for divination— the throw of the beans was thought to be able to tell the future.

Ancient Aztec game called Patolli

• Cities located at 52o latitude: Berlin, Germany; Hannover, Germany; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Warsaw, Poland; and Birmingham, UK.

• And finally, the  Morden Blush Rose, bred in Canada, has 52 petals.

52 Petal Morden Blush Rose