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 The Number Is Fifty-Five 55

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Another numbers factoid today. This time the number is fifty-five, along with its various associations.

Enjoy.

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The Number Fifty-Five  55

 

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In religion

• The number 55 is used 2 times in the Bible.
• The 55th word of the King James Version of the Bible’s Old Testament Genesis is “light”;
• At the end of his Gospel, Saint John devotes 55 verses (chapter 20 and 21) to describe the resurrection and his appearances of the Christ which took place after his death.
• The words throne and number are used 55 in the NT.
• 55 is the representative number of the Virgin Mary. In the New Testament the name Mary is referred to 55 times (26 times by the word mother; 10 times by the word woman; and 19 times by the name of Mary).
• Fifty-five years separate the Annunciation from the Assumption of the Virgin.

 

• A rabbinical study enumerates 55 prophets, divided into 48 prophets and 7 prophetess. This list appears in the Comment of Rachi on Meguilla 14a.

 

• Epsilon, E, is the 5th letter of the Greek alphabet, and Lambda, L, is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet and the product of the 3rd & 5th prime numbers: 5 x 11 = 55 = EL
• EL is an ancient Semitic title for God. In Assyrian-Babylonian mythology, the great trinity Anu (sky), Bel (light), and Ea (sea) emanated from EL. EL was used by the Phoenicians for the high-one. Elohim is the plural form of EL. The Hebrews associated EL or Elohim with a sun-deity absorbed by Yaw (Jah or Jehovah). In Hebrew poetry EL appears as First Cause, God, Mighty One, principle or beginning of all things.
• In Cabala, EL is a name of Chesed, the 4th Sephira.
• EL is Celtic for angel.  

 

• 55 represent the Divine Person, according to Abellio.
• 55 represent the limit of the humanity, according to E. Bindel.
• 55 represent the total and complete man, symbolized by the two hands which join at the moment of the prayer to remake the unit in the form of ten, but being able also to express that under the form of 55, “addition in the senses of the divine wisdom” according to saint Martin.
• The Bouriates knew 99 gods, divided into 55 goods and 44 bad. These two groups of gods would fight for a very long time between them.

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In Mathematics

• 55 is the sum of the first 10 numbers: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10 = 55
• 55 is the sum of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th triangular numbers: 3 + 6 + 10 + 15 + 21 = 55
• 55 is the sum of the first 5 square numbers (also known as a square pyramidal number): 1 + 4 + 9 + 16 + 25 = 55
• The sum of 5 odd heavenly numbers: 1+3+5+7+9 = 25; the sum of 5 even earthly numbers: 2+4+6+8+10 = 30; the sum of the heavenly & earthly series (I Ching): 25 + 30 = 55
• Fifty-five is the 10th Fibonacci number and a triangular number (the sum of the numbers 1 to 10), it is the largest Fibonacci number to also be a triangular number.

• 55 is heptagonal number, and a centered nonagonal number.
• In base 10, 55 is a Kaprekar number.
• 55 is a semiprime, being the product of 5 and 11 and it is the 2nd member of the (5.q) semiprime family.
• In Roman numeral 55 is written as LV
• 55 in Binary is 00110111
• In Pythagorean arithmetic, 2 is the first even number, 3 the first odd number. The even & odd tetractyes both radiate from the One, which is the source of all numbers. The sum of these two series is 55

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In Science

• 55 is the Atomic Number of Cesium (Cs).
• The cesium clock is used as a standard in measuring time. Its accuracy is one second in 30,000 years. The cesium atomic clock is based on the frequency corresponding to hyperfine structure transition in the atoms of cesium nuclides Cs-133.

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In space

• Messier object M55, is a magnitude 7.0 globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius

Messier Object M55

• The New General Catalogue object NGC 55, is a magnitude 7.9 barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor
• On February 9, 1986, Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to the sun (perihelion) at a distance of only about 55 million miles.
• The velocity of Halley’s comet at perihelion is 55 kilometers per second.

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In politics

• 55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (1787) and 39 signed the United States Constitution.
• Agitation and Propaganda against the State, also known as Constitution law 55, was a law in Communist Albania.

Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 1787

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In Books, Music, Movies and TV

• A song produced by Group X was called “Schfifty Five”.
• 55 is the name of a song by British Indie Rock Band Kasabian. The song was released as a B side to Club Foot and was recorded live when the band performed at London’s Brixton Academy.
• “I Can’t Drive 55”, is a song by Sammy Hagar
• “Old 55” is the title of a song by Tom Waits and The Eagles
• Cristian Vogel released an album in 2005 with the title “Station 55”
• “Ol’ 55”, is an Australian rock band.
• “Primer 55” is the name of an American band
• “55 Cadillac”, is an album by Andrew W.K.

 

• “55 Days at Peking” is a film starring Charlton Heston and David Niven

• “55 Degrees North” (2004–2005) is a British TV series about a  London detective who moves to Newcastle after blowing the whistle on a corrupt colleague.
• “Class of ’55”, is a TV comedy created by writer David Seltzer, and starring Alan Alda, John Archer, Sharon Cintron
• “The Fall Of ’55”, a crime drama, written by Seth Randal, about an incident in late 1955 and early 1956, when the citizens of Boise, Idaho believed there was a menace in their midst. On Halloween, investigators arrested three men on charges of having sex with teenage boys. The investigators claimed the arrests were just the tip of the iceberg-they said hundreds of boys were being abused as part of a child sex ring. There was no such ring, but the result was a widespread investigation which some people consider a witch hunt. By the time the investigation ended, 16 men were charged. Countless other lives were also touched.In some cases, men implicated fled the area. At least one actually left the country. The investigation attracted attention in newspapers across the nation, including Time Magazine. The “Morals Drive” left scars which remain to this day.

 

• José Saramago’s novel “The Cave” features the Center, a vast multistoried shopping mall whose catalog runs to 55 volumes of 1,500 pages each, an entertainment complex offering Disneyland versions of virtual reality, and apartments, a hospital, a crematory and administrative headquarters.

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In Transportation

• Speed Limit
• 55 was the highest speed limit allowed in the United States between 1974 and 1986 per the National Maximum Speed Law.

 

• Yoshimura R-55 GP Style Slip-On Exhaust
• The Yoshimura R-55 is a legendary exhaust building experience that gives the sportbike rider power in a lightweight, stylish package, using a tapered trapezoidal shape, finished off in either carbon fiber or stainless steel.

• The R-55 on the Kawasaki ZX-14R looks seamless and will weigh less than the ones that come stock.

 

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• BMW K55
• In 1991 BMW tuner Racing Dynamics of Italy produced a special version of the 8 Series dubbed the K55 Sport Coupe. The K55 5.5 Coupe was based on the 850i, powered by the 5.0-liter M70 that was stroked to 5.5 liters, new valves, camshafts lifters and intakes along with extrude honed heads. The one US version engine producing 475 bhp (354 kW; 482 PS) and the Euro version producing 401 bhp (299 kW).
• 40 K55s were produced for the Euro market and one in the US.
• In addition to engine modifications, The K55 offered a variety of body, suspensions, rear end options.

 

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• Mercedes-Benz S-55
• The S-Class is a series of luxury sedans produced by German automaker Mercedes-Benz, a division of German company Daimler AG.
• The classification was officially introduced in 1972 with the W116 S-Class, which succeeded previous Mercedes-Benz models dating to the mid-1950s.
• The S-Class has served as the flagship model for Mercedes for over fifty years in its various incarnations and has debuted many of the company’s latest innovations, including drivetrain technologies, interior features, and safety systems (such as the first seatbelt pre-tensioners).
• The S-Class has ranked as the world’s best-selling luxury sedan

 

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• Mercedes Benz G55 AMG
• The G-Wagen, or Gelandewagen as it is officially named, started out as a complete off roading machine. Mercedes-Benz built it for the German armed forces and as with any military vehicle, it was designed to take on the harshest of terrain and remain rather trouble free.
• A civilian version was introduced a couple years after the G-Class first made its debut, and it too displayed the same level of ruggedness and ‘go anywhere’ ability.
• The G Wagen has been around since the 70s and though it has received upgrades over the years, it still remains the ultimate off roading machine that is sought after by anyone and everyone who wishes to tour the world, go lion spotting in the Savannah or drive up Mount Everest!
• The G-Wagen’s reliability has grown to legendary heights and it commands an imposing presence as it drives by.
• There is no doubting the fan following garnered by the G Wagen over the years and in order to cater to the growing demand, Mercedes-Benz has toyed with the vehicle to make it more exciting and usher in a level of performance and sheer ludicrousness through their AMG subsidiary.
• The latest incarnation of the G Wagen is the G55 AMG. Considered to be the most powerful G Class vehicle yet, it boasts of having performance figures that one would normally find associated with sportscars and it can still handle the rough.

Photo showing the Hamann Typhoon enhanced version of the Mercedes Benz G55 AMG

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• Mitsubishi Jeep J55
• In 1950 the Japanese wanted a prototype 4X4 trucks and other vehicles and in response by January 1951 Toyota had produced a prototype. Toyota based their design on the Bantam vehicle that had seen military action in Malaysia. At the time there were many Jeeps being driven in Japan and the Jeep came to be the symbol of the 4X4. For this reason Toyota called it’s prototype the Toyota Jeep. These became the FJ40 that Americans found to be a rugged and reliable off road vehicle.
• However, largely unknown to those in North America, there was another strong contender to the legend, the Mitsubishi Jeep. Their design was based on the Willys Jeep, the vehicle ultimately selected for procurement by the National Police Reserve Forces, and in 1953 Mitsubishi secured the rights to build the Willys under their own name. Thus the Mitsubishi Jeep was born.
• In the USA the Willys was built till 1965 but in Japan Mitsubishi had a good thing going so they kept the line in production till 1998.

 

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In militaria

• HMS Suffolk (55)
• HMS Suffolk (55) was a Royal Navy County class heavy cruiser and part of the Kent subclass. She was launched on 16 March 1926, and commissioned on 25 June 1928.
• Like her sister ships, Suffolk served on the China Station until the outbreak of WWII when she returned to Europe and patrolled the Denmark Straits.
• In April 1940 Suffolk participated in the Norwegian Campaign and arrived at Tórshavn to commence the British pre-emptive occupation of the Faroe Islands. On 14 April 1940 Suffolk sank the German tanker Skagerrak northwest of Bodø, Norway.
• On 17 April 1940, Suffolk and four destroyers, HMS Kipling, HMS Juno, HMS Janus and HMS Hereward, were sent to bombard the airfield at Sola, Norway. The operation had little effect and the retaliation from German bombers severely damaged the aft of the ship, forcing her to return to Scapa Flow.
• Suffolk was out of action from April 1940 until February 1941 while she was repaired at the Clyde.
• During May 1941, as part of the 4th Cruiser Squadron, Suffolk was involved in the Battle of the Denmark Strait and the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. Suffolk had engaged the battleship twice during the battle, making several salvoes on her. Using her radar, Suffolk was able to track the Bismarck through the Denmark Strait and maintained contact long enough for other units to vector into Bismarck’s path.
• After repairs Suffolk served with the Home Fleet in Arctic waters until the end of 1942, then underwent a refit between December 1942 and April 1943. On completion of this the ship was ordered to the Eastern Fleet, operating in the Indian Ocean until the end of the war.
• Suffolk was scrapped on 24 June 1948.

 

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• HMS Finisterre (D55)
• HMS Finisterre (D55) was a Battle-class destroyer of the Royal Navy (RN). She was named after one of the battles of Cape Finisterre. Launched on the 22 June 1944 and commissioned on 11 September 1945.
• She first joined the Home Fleet upon her commissioning. After duties in the Far East, Finisterre returned to the UK via the Mediterranean. In January 1950, she took part in the rescue attempt of the submarine HMS Truculent, which had sunk after colliding with a Swedish merchant ship Divina in the Thames Estuary. The collision had resulted in the loss of 64 of those on board. The following year Finisterre became the Gunnery Training Ship, based at Whale Island, Portsmouth as part of HMS Excellent.
• In 1953, Finisterre took part in the 1953 Coronation Fleet Review to celebrate the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II.
• The following year Finisterre was placed in Reserve. After her sister-ship HMS Hogue collided with an Indian cruiser in 1959, Finisterre replaced her in the 1st Destroyer Squadron, based in the Far East. She was one of a number of Royal Navy ships stationed off Kuwait to keep the peace as the country gained its independence in 1961.
• In 1965 she was sold for scrap.

 

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• USS Aludra (AF-55)
• The USS Aludra (AF-55) was an Alstede-class stores ship acquired by the U.S. Navy and tasked to carry stores, refrigerated items, and equipment to ships in the fleet, and to remote stations and staging areas.
• Originally ordered as refrigerated cargo ship “SS Matchless” she was launched on 14 October 1944 and delivered to the United States Lines under a bare boat charter on 23 March 1945.
• She operated in the Pacific Ocean during the final months of the war and during the first four years following Japan’s capitulation and then laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet berthing area at Bay Minette, Alabama.
• She was reactivated in November 1950, as the result of an expansion of the Fleet to meet its greatly increased responsibilities because of the United Nations decision to oppose communist aggression in Korea. Renamed Aludra on 16 January 1951, she was assigned to Service Squadron 3, Service Force, Pacific Fleet and took up the tasks of supporting Task Force (TF) 77 in strikes along the east coast of Korea and TF 72 in patrols in the East China Sea and off Formosa.
• Ending her first deployment to the western Pacific, she returned to San Francisco, California, on 4 May 1953. Thereafter, for more than 16 years, she alternated operations on the west coast of the United States with tours in the Far East resupplying ships serving in the Orient. Among the highlights of her service was her participation in Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of thousands of Vietnamese refugees from communist-controlled areas of Vietnam after that country had been partitioned in 1954.
• The ship again visited Vietnamese waters in March 1965 and, for a bit over three and one-half years thereafter, devoted most of her efforts to supporting American warships fighting aggression there. She left that war-torn country for the last time on 19 April 1969 and headed—via Sasebo, Japan—for home.
• Aludra was decommissioned on 12 September 1969 and withdrawn from the reserve fleet on 19 January 1977 for stripping by the Navy prior to sale. She was purchased from MARAD by Sea World Processors Inc., for non-transportation use, 16 November 1977 and delivered, 16 February 1978. In 1981 she was burned and scuttled.

 

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• USS Valcour (AVP-55)
• USS Valcour (AVP-55), later AGF-1, was commissioned on 5 July 1946 as a seaplane tender from 1946 to 1965 and as a flagship from 1965 to 1973. She was the last of the 35 Barnegat-class ships to commission.
• Valcour was designated as flagship for the Commander, Middle Eastern Force (ComMidEastFor) and served in the Middle East from 5 September 1950 to 15 March 1951.
• On the morning of 14 May 1951, two months after she returned to Norfolk from her second Middle East tour, Valcour suffered a steering casualty and power failure and collided with another vessel. An intense fire broke out aboard Valcour causing the commanding officer, Captain Eugene Tatom, to order abandon ship. Eleven men died, 16 more were injured and another 25 were listed as “missing”, later to be confirmed as dead.
• After an extensive overhaul and improvements, and from 1952–1965 she rotated yearly between the United States and the Middle East.
• In January 1972 Valcour was for inactivationand  was decommissioned on 15 January 1973. On 1 May 1977, the U.S. Navy sold Valcour for scrapping.

 

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• Kh-55 (missile family)
• The Kh-55 is a Soviet/Russian air-launched cruise missile, designed by MKB Raduga. It has a range of up to 3,000 km (1,620 nmi) and can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. Kh-55 is launched exclusively from bomber aircraft and has spawned a number of conventionally armed variants mainly for tactical use, such as the Kh-65SE and Kh-SD, but only the Kh-101 and Kh-555 appear to have made it into service. Contrary to popular belief, the Kh-55 was not the basis of the submarine- and ground-launched RK-55 Granat (SS-N-21 ‘Sampson’ and SSC-X-4 ‘Slingshot’).
• A Kh-55 production unit was delivered to Shanghai in 1995 and appears to have been used to produce a similar weapon for China.

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• RK-55 Granat
• The Novator RK-55 Granat was a Soviet land-based cruise missile with a nuclear warhead.
• It was about to enter service in 1987 when such weapons were banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
• A version launched from submarine torpedo tubes, the S-10 Granat (SS-N-21 ‘Sampson’;GRAU:3M10), has apparently been converted to carry conventional warheads and continues in service to this day.
• The RK-55 is very similar to the air-launched Kh-55 (AS-15 ‘Kent’) but the Kh-55 has a drop-down turbofan engine[3] and was designed by MKB Raduga. Both have formed the basis of post-Cold-War missiles, in particular the 3M-54 Klub (SS-N-27 ‘Sizzler’) which has a supersonic approach phase.

 

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• 55th Fighter Squadron
• The 55th Fighter Squadron was originally organized as the 55th Aero Squadron at Kelly Field, Texas. By November 1917 the squadron was deployed to Issoudun, France. It was demobilized on 6 March 1919, following the end of WWI, but was reactivated in November 1930, at Mather Field, California.
• At the beginning of World War II, the 55^th continued to train aviators for squadrons in Europe and the Pacific. In May 1942, it was redesignated a fighter squadron and operated from several locations in the United States.
• The 55th was deployed in Europe in August 1943, operating from RAF Wittering, England, and flew 175 combat missions. With the rest of the 20th Fighter Group, the 55th flew daily strafing, long-range-patrol and bomber-escort missions. In June, they provided air cover during the massive allied invasion of Normandy.
• The 55th also performed escort and fighter-bomber missions supporting the Allied advance through Central Europe and the Rhineland. In December 1945, they took part in the Battle of the Bulge, escorting bombers to the battle area.
• The 55th was demobilized on 18 October 1945, after the end of WWII, but was reactivated on 29 July 1946, at Biggs Field, Texas.
• The 55th entered the jet age in February 1948, with the F-84G Thunderjet. In January 1950, and was redesignated the 55th Fighter-Bomber Squadron. The squadron returned to England at RAF Wethersfield in June 1952, where it was redesignated the 55th Tactical Fighter Squadron and then moved to RAF Upper Heyford in June 1970. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the 55th participated in countless North Atlantic Treaty Organization and U.S. exercises and operations, which directly contributed to containment of Soviet threats to Europe.
• In January 1991, elements of the 55th deployed to Turkey during Operation Desert Storm. They flew more than 144 sorties, amassing 415 combat hours without a loss. These missions neutralized key facilities throughout northern Iraq and helped to liberate Kuwait and stabilize the region. The squadron was inactivated in December 1993.
• It was transferred and reactivated on 1 January 1994, to its present home, Shaw Air Force Base, flying the A-10 Thunderbolt II. In July 1996, the squadron transferred its aircraft to Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, and stood down.
• In July 1997, the 55th made history when it stood up as a combat-ready F-16CJ squadron in only 60 days. It has since made numerous deployments to Southwest Asia, continuing to contain the Iraqi threat. In the meantime, the squadron has earned awards and recognition, including the David C. Schilling Award in 1999 and 2000, as well as the Air Force Association Citation of Honor.
• In the summer of 2000, the 55th deployed to Southwest Asia for Operation Northern Watch. It followed that deployment with Operation Southern Watch in the fall of 2001, and in the winter of 2002, deployed again in support of Operation Northern Watch. Most recently the 55th deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in late 2008.

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• Lockheed Martin X-55
• The Lockheed Martin X-55 Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA) is an experimental twin jet engined transport aircraft intended to demonstrate new cargo-carrier capabilities using advanced composites. It is a project of the United States Air Force’s Air Force Research Laboratory, and was built by the international aerospace company Lockheed Martin, at its Advanced Development Programs (Skunk Works) facility in Palmdale, California.

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• The T-55 tank
• The T-54 and T-55 tanks are a series of medium tanks that were designed in the Soviet Union. The first T-54 prototype appeared in March 1945, just as the Second World War ended. The T-54 entered full production in 1947 and became the main tank for armored units of the Soviet Army, armies of the Warsaw Pact countries, and others. T-54s and T-55s were involved in many of the world’s armed conflicts during the late 20th and early 21st century.
• The T-54/55 series eventually became the most-produced tank in history. Estimated production numbers for the series range from 86,000 to 100,000. They were replaced by the T-62, T-64, T-72, T-80, and T-90 in the Soviet and Russian Armies, but remain in use by up to 50 other armies worldwide, some having received sophisticated retrofitting.
• Soviet tanks never directly faced their NATO Cold War adversaries in Europe. However, the T-54/55’s first appearance in the West in 1960 spurred the United States to develop the M60 Patton.

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• K55 SPG Self-Propelled Gun
• Since 1985 when it entered service, and until recently, when it has been replaced by the more miodern K9 Thunder platform, the South Korean Army relied on the K55.
• It was a localized development of the US military’s M109A2 Paladin SPG family, license-produced by Samsung Techwin / Samsung Aerospace Industries (SSA).
• Over 1,100 (1,180) of the type were procured by the South Korean government, supplying the Army with a long range, heavy hitter capable of lobbing conventional, chemical and nuclear shells at any potential enemies – namely North Korea.
• The 25-ton K55 borrowed much from the American M109 including its conventional design consisting of an armored tracked chassis and boxy turret superstructure. The vehicle is crewed by six personnel and primary armament is a 155mm main gun of 30 caliber length. Defense is through 1 x 12.7mm K6 heavy machine gun. Power is served through a Detroit Diesel 8V-71T turbocharged, diesel-fueled engine of 450 horsepower. Maximum road speed across ideal surfaces is 56 kmh. The main gun can supply a rate-of-fire of 4 shots per minute while targeting is through manual means. A full ammunition load aboard the K55 is 36 projectiles.
• The K55 entered a modernization program in 1994, producing the K55A1 designation.
• The newer 47-ton K9 Thunder formally entered service in 1999 and is crewed by five personnel, carried 48 projectiles and features a rate-of-fire of 6 shots per minute with manual or automatic targeting. Additionally, the powerplant provides road speeds of up to 66 kph.

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Other stuff

• 55 is the code for international direct dial phone calls to Brazil
• 55 gallon is a standard size for a drum container
• Gazeta 55, an Albanian newspaper
• An Emerald wedding anniversary celebrates 55 years.
• Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress was assigned Lot #55 at the Christie’s Auction on October 27, 1999.  It sold for a record price for a dress— $1,267,500. 

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You Can Pick Any Subject And Still Be Sure Quiz Show Contestants Will Know Nothing About It

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I’m not sure how many more of these quiz show answers are left in the archives, but there are enough for today’s selection.

It doesn’t seem to matter what subject the questions are about, you are still almost guaranteed that a quiz show contestant will not only know nothing about it, but will come up with the most irrelevant and absurd answers.

Enjoy.

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Q:  Who played agent 007 in the 1989 film Licence To Kill?

A:  Err…………James Bond?

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Q:  With whom did Britain go to war over the Falklands?

A:  Err   .          .          .

Q:  It s a South American country.

A:  Iran.

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Q:  Name a domestic animal.

A:  Leopard.

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Q:  Name a game you can play in the bath.

A:  Scuba diving.

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Q:  How many strings does a guitar have?

A:  Err   …Four.

Q:  It s the number of wives that Henry VIII had   .          .          .

A:  Oh! Five.

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Q: Name a prime number between 20 and 40.

A: Between 20 and 40?

Q: Yes.

A: 7. 

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Q: After his abdication, King Edward VIII of England became known as the Duke of where?

A: Duke of Earl. 

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Q: Who wrote Hamlet?

A: Um, MacBeth.

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Q: What insect is commonly found hovering above lakes?

A: Crocodiles.

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Q: Name an animal whose eggs you probably never eat for breakfast.

A: Hamster.

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Q: What creature squirts a smelly, unpleasant fluid at its enemies?

A: A snake.

Q: No, I’ll give you a clue — it’s black and white.

A: A bee!

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Q: Which character narrates all but four of the Sherlock Holmes books?

A: The Pink Panther.

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Q: What is the capital of Australia? And it’s not Sydney.

A: Sydney.

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Q: We’re looking for a four-letter answer here. Shakespeare said that this by any other name would smell as sweet.

A: Soap?

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Q: The four Gospels of the New Testament are attributed to Matthew, Mark, John and who?

A: Joe.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number Twenty-Seven 27

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today is another numbers day and the randomly chosen number is twenty-seven. Were you  born on the 27th, is it your lucky number, has it some other significance for you or do you just like facts and trivia. Whatever your interest you will probably find something in here that you didn’t know about the number twenty-seven.

Enjoy.

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Number Twenty-Seven 27

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In religion

• There are six occurrences of 27th in the Bible: Genesis 8.14; I Kings 16.10, 16.15; 2 Kings 15.1, 25.27; Ezekiel 29.17
• God creates man “male & female” in the 27th verse in Genesis I;
• After the Flood, the earth was dried on the 27th day of the 2nd month (Genesis 8.14);
• In the 27th year the Lord gave Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon;
• Book 27 of Proverbs has 27 verses;
• The New Testament is made up of 27 books;
• The Book of Revelation is the 27th Book and last book of the New Testament;
• John Calvin published Institutes of the Christian Religion when he was 27 years old (1536);
• Twenty-seven is the highest level of knowledge in rupaloke (Buddhism);
• In ancient Incan culture there were 27 roads to El Dorado.

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In mathematics

• An Octillion is 10²⁷ which is a 1 followed by 27 zeros
• Twenty-seven is a perfect cube, being 3 to the power of 3 or 3 × 3 × 3.
• Twenty-seven is the only positive integer that is 3 times the sum of its digits.

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In science

• The atomic number of Cobalt (Co) is 27
• The atomic weight of Aluminum (Al) is 27

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In space

• Solar rotation: The Sun rotates on its axis once in about 27 days;
• The 27th moon of Jupiter is Sinope.
• The planet Uranus has 27 moons
• Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Apple Core Nebula, M 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light years;

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• On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, he was 27 years old;

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• This is the official insignia of the NASA STS-27 mission. The patch depicts the space shuttle lifting off against the multi-colored backdrop of a rainbow, symbolizing the triumphal return to flight of our nation’s manned space program. The design also commemorates the memory of the crew of Challenger mission STS-51-L, represented by the seven stars. The names of the flight crew members of STS-27 are located along the border of the patch. They are astronauts Robert L. Gibson, commander; Guy S. Gardner, pilot; Jerry L. Ross, Richard M. (Mike) Mullane and William M. Shepherd, mission specialists. Each crew member contributed to the design of the insignia.

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In books, music, TV and movies

• Rudolph Valentino was 27 when he stared in film Blood and Sand;
• Sergei Eisenstein directs The Battleship Potemkin in 1925, aged 27;
• 27 year old Greta Garbo uttered the famous words, “I want to be alone” in film Grand Hotel in 1932;
• Errol Flynn (1909-1959) stars in film Charge of the Light Brigade (1936);

• Ingmar Bergman (born 7-14-1918) directs his first film Crisis (1945);
• Deanna Durbin, teenage star retires in 1949, aged 27, after her 22 film career;
• In the 1977 Carl Reiner movie Oh, God!, Jerry Landers (John Denver), a supermarket manager meets God (George Burns) on the 27th floor in Room 2700;
• Captain Jean-Luc Picard has made contact with twenty-seven species of aliens in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation;
• The following famous authors published these works when they were 27 years old: Jacob Grimm, Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1812-1815); George Sand, her first book, Indiana in 1831; Nikolai Gogol, The Inspector General in 1836 and Upton Sinclair, The Jungle in 1906;
• Famous Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes The Kilmarnock Poems in 1786, aged 27;
• Rupert Brooke was 27 when he wrote the poem “If I should die, think only this of me…” in 1914; he died the following year (1915) in World War I;

RupertBrooke

• Hugh Hefner (born 1926) publishes Playboy magazine (1953);
• In 1956, Grace Kelly was 27 years old when she retired from movies to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco;
• Aged 27 Julie Andrews starred in her first film Mary Poppins in 1963 and won an Oscar for the Best Actress (1964);

• January 27 is the birthday of Mozart 1756, Lewis Carroll 1832, and Jerome Kern 1885;
• When he is 27 years old Claude Debussy composes Claire de Lune in 1890;
• The 27 Club is the collective term used when talking about musicians and singers who all died at the age of 27: Robert Johnston, blues singer and musician; Brian Jones, founder member of the Rolling Stones; Janis Joplin, rock singer, from drugs overdose in 1970; Jimmy Hendrix, rock guitarist, died from drugs overdose in 1970; Jim Morrison, rock singer, from a heart attack in 1971; Kurt Corbain, rock singer, from drugs overdose in 1994; and Amy Winehouse, singer, from drink and drug overdose in 2011.

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In politics

• Florida became the 27th State to enter the Union (March 3, 1845)

• There are twenty-seven words in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
• The 27th President of the United States was William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who served (1909-1913). He later served as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1921-1930).

President William H Taft

• Taft was the heaviest president ever at 332 pounds, and famously got stuck in the White House bathtub. Subsequently he had an oversized version brought in for his use.
• William Howard Taft was the first president to own a car at the White House (he had the White House stables converted into a 4-car garage), the first to throw out the first ball to begin the professional baseball season, and the first president to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
• Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912, also making Taft the first President of the 48 contiguous states.
• Taft liked milk so much that he brought his own cow to the White House. The cows name was Mooly Wolly. Mooly was replaced by another cow called Paulin. Paulin was the last cow to graze on the White House lawn.
• During his administration, the U.S. parcel post system began, but sadly during his term Congress approved the 16th Amendment, providing for the levying of an income tax.

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In sport

• Carlton Fisk, Baseball Hall of Famer, wore uniform #27 while playing with the Boston Red Sox. Fisk waves his homer fair to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series 7-6 in the 12th inning against the Cinncinati Reds.

Carlton Fisk

• The size of a tennis court for singles is 78 feet long and 27 feet wide.
• In tennis Bill Tilden (1893-1953) won his first Wimbledon tennis championship in 1920 at the age of 27 (he went on to win  it two more times in 1921 and 1930); he also won his first US Championship in 1920 aged 27 (and went on to win it six more times in 1921-25, and in 1929)

• At the age of 27, Bob Feller achieved a strike-out record of 348 batters; Sandy Koufax breaks his own NL strike-out record with 276 and also sets major-league record with 11 shut-outs for a left-hander;
• Dawn Fraser won the Olympic 100-meters freestyle swimming in 1964 aged 27.

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In militaria

• USS Suwannee (CVE-27)
• During WWII, USS Suwannee (CVE-27) (originally an oiler AO-33, converted to an escort carrier AVG/ACV/CVE-27) saw a great deal of active service and earned 13 battle stars.  She took part in the invasion of North Africa and during the Naval Battle of Casablanca from 8–11 November, Suwannee sent up 255 air sorties and lost only five planes, three in combat and two to operational problems. She was also the first escort carrier to score against the enemy undersea menace, and she helped to prove the usefulness of her type in anti-submarine warfare.
• Later the Suwannee was sent to the South Pacific. For the next seven months, she provided air escort for transports and supply ships replenishing and bolstering the marines on Guadalcanal, as well as for the forces occupying other islands in the Solomons group. She also participated in the Gilbert Islands operation as part of the Air Support Group of the Southern Attack Force, and her planes bombed Tarawa, while the ships in the Northern Attack Force engaged the enemy at Makin.
• During 1944 the Suwannee joined the Northern Attack Force, and her planes bombed and strafed Roi and Namur Islands, in the northern part of Kwajalein Atoll, and conducted antisubmarine patrols for the task force. By 30 March, she was in the vicinity of the Palau Islands as the 5th Fleet subjected those islands to two days of extensive bombing raids.
• On 24–25 October 1944, the Japanese launched a major surface offensive from three directions to contest the landings at Leyte Gulf. Suwanee was hit during the attacks but was able to resume air operations helped to fight off two more air attacks. Just after noon on 26 October, another group of kamikazes jumped Taffy 1. A Zero crashed into Suwanee’s flight deck at 1240 and careened into a torpedo bomber which had just been recovered. The two planes erupted upon contact as did nine other planes on her flight deck. The resulting fire burned for several hours, but was finally brought under control. The casualties for 25-26 October were 107 dead and 160 wounded.
• Suwannee remained in reserve at Boston for the next 12 years. She was redesignated an escort helicopter aircraft carrier, CVHE-27, on 12 June 1955. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 1 March 1959. Her hulk was sold to the Isbrantsen Steamship Company, of New York City on 30 November 1959 for conversion to merchant service. The project was subsequently canceled and, in May 1961, her hulk was resold to the J.C. Berkwit Company, also of New York City. She was finally scrapped in Bilbao, Spain, in June 1962.

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• MIG-27
• The Mikoyan MiG-27 is a variable-geometry ground-attack aircraft, originally built by the Mikoyan design bureau in the Soviet Union and later license-produced in India by Hindustan Aeronautics as the Bahadur (“Valiant”). It is based on the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter aircraft, but optimized for air-to-ground attack. Unlike the MiG-23, the MiG-27 did not see widespread use outside Russia, as most countries opted for the MiG-23BN and Sukhoi Su-25 instead. It currently only remains in service with the Indian, Kazakh and Sri Lankan Air Forces in the ground attack role. All Russian and Ukrainian MiG-27s have been retired.
• It was used by Soviet forces during the later stages of the Afghanistan conflict in 1987–1989.
• The MiG-27 aircraft also entered service with the Sri Lanka Air Force in 2000. During the Sri Lankan Civil War, they saw considerable action bombing strategic targets and providing close air support.
• Since 2001, the Indian Air Force has lost 12 MiG-27s to crashes and in mid-February 2010, India grounded its entire fleet of over 150 of the aircraft after a MiG-27 crashed on 16 February 2010 in Siliguri, West Bengal. The crash was attributed to defects in the R 29 engines of the aircraft, suspected to have occurred during the overhauling of the aircraft by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
• The MiG-27 remains in service with the Kazakh Air Force.

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• Alenia C-27J
• The Alenia C-27J Spartan is a medium-sized military transport aircraft. The C-27J is an advanced derivative of Alenia Aeronautica’s G.222, with the engines and systems of the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules.

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• CZ 27
• The CZ-27, a single action semiautomatic pistol with a capacity of 8 or 9 rounds, was developed in around 1926 by Czech arms designer Frantisek Myska in an attempt to produce simplified version of the CZ Vz.24 pistol, chambered for less powerful 7.65×17 SR Browning ammunition (also known as .32 ACP) and suited for police and security use.
• It was put into production in 1927, at arms factory in Praha. Until the appearance of the famous CZ-75 pistol, the CZ-27 was one of the most successful handguns produced in Czechoslovakia, with well over 500 000 guns of this type produced between 1927 and 1951. During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia it was manufactured for German armed forces and police as Pistole model 27, or P.27(t) in short. It was extensively used by Czechoslovak police and security forces, and widely exported to many parts of the world.

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• OTs-27 “Berdysh” pistol
• Originally developed by the TSKIB SOO (central design bureau for sporting and hunting arms, Tula, Russia, later merged with famous KBP design bureau) the OTs-27 “Berdysh” is a Double Action semiautomatic 9 mm pistol with a capacity of 18 rounds. It was developed for “Grach” trials, with the goal being the replacement for the venerable Makarov PM as a standard issue sidearm for Russian army. The  OTs-27 was subsequently dropped from the Grach trials, but the development continued and the pistol first appeared circa 1994.

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Other stuff

• Cities located at 27 degrees longitude are Lajes, Azores and Izmir, Turkey;
• Cities located at 27 degrees latitude are Brisbane, Australia and Katmandu, Nepal;
• There are 27 bones in the human hand;
• The Hebrew alphabet consists of 27 letters;
• Napoleon was named commander of the army of Italy during his 27^th year, on March 2, 1796;

• Elias Howe invents the first sewing machine in 1846 when he was 27 years old;
• When he was aged 27 F.W. Woolworth founded Woolworth Co. (1879) selling 5¢ and 10¢ merchandise;
• There are 27 small cubes in a Rubik’s cube;

• In 1806, aged 27, Zebulon M. Pike discovers Pike’s Peak, Colorado;
• At the age of 27, Captain Matthew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875. He took 21 hours 43 minutes for the distance of 21 miles. Sadly eight years later, aged 35, Webb drowned while trying to swim across the waters above Niagara Falls in an attempt to exploit his fame as a swimmer. A memorial stone to Webb carries this inscription: “Nothing Great Is Easy”.

• John Smith was 27 years old when he led the first English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607; he was saved from death by Pocohontas.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Today Number One Hundred 100

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today the number is 100, very popular, much used by almost everyone.  Here are some things about 100 that you may know and some you probably don’t.

Enjoy.

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100 One Hundred

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In Religion

• Shem was an hundred years old when he became a father (Genesis 11:10);
• Abraham was also one hundred years of age when his son Isaac was born (Gen. 21:5);
• Obadiah saved one hundred prophets by hiding them in a cave and feeding them. (I Kings 18.4);
• Jesus’ parable of the 100th lost sheep (Matthew 18.12);
• Nicodemus brought one hundred pounds of myrrh & aloes to embalm Jesus after his crucifixion (John 19.39);
• Paul’s 14 Epistles in the New Testament total one hundred chapters;
• There are 100 blasts of the Shofar heard in the service of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year;
• A religious Jew is expected to utter at least one hundred blessings daily.

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In politics

• The United States Senate has 100 Senators, two from each of the 50 States;
• “The First Hundred Days” is an arbitrary benchmark of a President of the United States’ performance at the beginning of his or her term.

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In mathematics

• A Centillion 10303 has 100 groups of three zeros after 1000;
• A Googol is the figure 1 followed by 100 zeroes, written 10100. It was invented by Milton Sirotta, the 9-year nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner;
• A 10×10 Magic Square has 100 squares with numbers 1-100, each row, column & diagonal adding to 505 with the total sum being 5050;
• There are exactly 100 prime numbers whose digits are in strictly ascending order. (e.g. 239, 2357 etc.);
• Pythagoreans considered 100 as divinely divine because it is the square (10 x 10) of the divine decad;
• The standard SI prefix for a hundred is “hecto-“;
• 100 is the basis of percentages (per cent meaning “per hundred” in Latin), with 100% being a full amount and representing wholeness, purity, or perfection.

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In science

• One hundred is the Atomic Number of Fermium, a radioactive rare earth metal;
• One hundred is the molecular weight of Calcium Carbonate;
• The boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius.

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In space

• Messier 100 is a perfect example of a grand design spiral galaxy, a type of galaxy with prominent and very well-defined spiral arms.
• These dusty structures swirl around the galaxy’s nucleus, and are marked by a flurry of star formation activity that dots Messier 100 with bright blue, high-mass stars.
• This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

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In Finance

• Most of the world’s currencies are divided into 100 sub-units; for example, one dollar or one euro is made up of one hundred cents, and one pound sterling is one hundred pence;
• The U.S. hundred-dollar bill (the largest US bill in print) has Benjamin Franklin’s portrait;

• American savings bonds of $100 have Thomas Jefferson’s portrait;
• American $100 treasury bonds have Andrew Jackson’s portrait;
• The FTSE 100, NASDAQ 100, etc., are financial tables of the top companies on the various stock exchanges.

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In sport

• 100 is the number of yards in an American football field (not including the end zones);
• 100 is the minimum distance in yards for a Par 3 on a golf course;
• The 100 meters sprint is the race that brings with it the title of the fastest man in the world. Current holder is Jamaican superstar Usain Bolt;

• 100 points scored by Wilt Chamberlain is the record number of points scored in one NBA game by a single player in basketball game, achieved when Philadelphia Warrior defeated New York Knicks 169-147 on March 2, 1962 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The 316 points by both teams surpassed the record of 312 when Boston defeated Minneapolis 173-139 on Feb. 27, 1959 in Boston.

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In militaria

• The Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) between France & England lasted 116 years.

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• Ultimax 100
• The Ultimax 100 is a squad automatic weapon / light machine gun. It was created by the small arms design team at Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS; now Singapore Technologies Kinetics) Inc, that included American small arms designer James Sullivan, who previously worked for Armalite and participated in design of the AR-18 assault rifle. In 1982 it was adopted by the Singaporean army. The current production version is Ultimax 100 Mark 3.

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• Type 100 Submachine Gun
• Designed and built by the Nambu Arms Manufacturing Company in Japan, the Type 100 Submachine gun was used during World War II, and the only submachine gun produced by Japan in any quantity. It was modeled on the famous Bergmann MP18 submachine gun.  First samples were delivered to the Imperial Army in 1942 and in total some 30,000 were manufactured.

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• F-100
• The North American F-100 Super Sabre was a supersonic jet fighter aircraft that served with the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1954 to 1971 and with the Air National Guard (ANG) until 1979.
• The first of the Century Series collection of USAF jet fighters, it was the first USAF fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight.
• The F-100 was originally designed by North American Aviation as a higher performance follow-on to the F-86 Sabre air superiority fighter.
• Adapted as a fighter bomber, the F-100 would be supplanted by the Mach 2 class F-105 Thunderchief for strike missions over North Vietnam. The F-100 flew extensively over South Vietnam as the Air Force’s primary close air support jet until replaced by the more efficient subsonic LTV A-7 Corsair II.
• The F-100 also served in other NATO air forces and with other U.S. allies. In its later life, it was often referred to as “the Hun,” a shortened version of “one hundred.
• This aircraft is now on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

 

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• JF-100
• NASA’s JF-100 Variable Stability Aircraft is a research aircraft about which very little information is readily available. Only scattered references of it remain in bits of documents and reports.
• The JF-100 was built from an Air Force F-100C by NASA’s Ames Research Center, and transferred to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in 1960. The “J” designation refers to it being modified for special test missions, but not so extensively that it could not be returned to being a standard F-100. The aircraft obviously was acquired from the Air Force and carried the registration number 53-1709, but no information about its earlier career was available.
• The JF-100 was removed from service as a variable stability aircraft at NASA Dryden in 1964, but its final disposition could not be determined. The information is most likely buried in various reports somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered by a future researcher.

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• F100 class frigates
• The Álvaro de Bazán class (also known as the F100 class of frigates) are a new class of Aegis combat system-equipped air defence frigates entering service with the Spanish Navy. They are being built in the Spanish factory of Navantia in Ferrol and are named after Admiral Álvaro de Bazán.
• The ships are fitted with American Aegis weapons technology allowing them to track hundreds of airborne targets simultaneously as part of its air defence network. The F100 Alvaro de Bazan class multi-role frigate is one of the few non-US warships to carry the Aegis Combat System and its associated AN/SPY-1 radar. Japan’s Kongo class, South Korea’s King Sejong the Great class, the F100-derived Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen class of frigates also use the Aegis system. Lockheed Martin, Navantia and the U.S. Navy are conducting final systems integration.

Spanish Navy F 100 Class Frigate, Almirante Juan de Borbon

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• SU-100
• Designed on the chasis of the T-34-85 tank, the tank hunter SU-100 was produced until March 1946 with a total number of 3037 units made.
• It was one of the most effective anti-tank units up to 1948. In 1960, the SU-100 was upgraded with the installation of a new enhanced B2-34M engine, fuel pump NK-10, air cleaners VTI-3, commander observation equipment TPKU-2B and driver’s night sight BVN, as well as radio sets 10RT-26E and TPU-47.
• The SU-100 was produced in Czechoslovakia and was in the inventory of several African and Middle East countries. The Arabs actively used it in military conflicts with Israel.

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• Other stuff
• Cities located at 100 degree longitude: Penang, Malaysia; Bangkok, Thailand; Monterrey, Mexico;
• Hecatonchires were giants with 100 arms and 50 heads each. They were born of Gaia & Uranus, and were stronger than even the Cyclopes. Their names were Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges;
• Gene McDaniels’ song A Hundred Pounds of Clay had highest hit #3 in 1961 Pop Charts;
• Joseph Haydn’s Symphony #100 in G Major is called “Military” (composed 1793-94);
• Room 100 is a 4-member male melodic rock band formed in 1982;
• Gathering of the 100 Gods occurs on the 19th day of the first lunar month;
• The first Chinese dictionary was written in 100 A.D.;
• The 100th day of the year (non-leap year) is April 10;
• On April 10, 1912, the Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, and hit the iceberg on 4-15-1912;
• The Century Plant is a Mexican agave (Agave americana) that blooms only once every “100 years” (folklore). In reality, it takes 10 years to bloom in warm regions and up to 60 years in colder climates;
• Centipedes are insects with “100 legs”;
• A Centenarian is someone over 100 years old. The number of Centenarians in the US  increased from 37,306 (1990) to 50,454 (2000) according to the U.S. Census;  the 180,000 centenarians worldwide (2000) is projected to reach 3.2 million by 2050;
• Polish Draughts is a 100-square board game played with 40 pieces. It is similar to the 64-square board game of Checkers;
• Roman numeral for 100 is C; 
• Centennial is a 100th anniversary or its celebration;
• A Century is a period of 100 years;
• When a TV series reaches 100 episodes, it is generally considered viable for syndication; 
• There are100 tiles in a standard Scrabble set;
• In Greece, India, Israel and Nepal, 100 is the police telephone number;
• In Belgium, 100 is the ambulance and firefighter telephone number;
• In United Kingdom, 100 is the operator telephone number;
• There are 100 pounds in an American short hundredweight.

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Thirteen, Unlucky For Some

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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They’ve been ‘beautiful’,  they’ve been ‘big’  and they’ve been ‘unusual’. 

Today we have ‘significant’ number thirteen, unlucky for some.

Enjoy.

 

13 Thirteen

The number 13 seems to give a lot of people trouble. Indeed the fear of the number 13 is so pervasive that it even has a phobia named after it  –  triskaidekaphobia. 

 

In the Bible.

• At the Last Supper in Christian theology, there were 13 dinner guests, so that number is unlucky because Christ was betrayed.
• Thirteen famines are recorded in the Scriptures.
• The destruction of Jericho is stamped with the number thirteen, because the city was compassed once each day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day, making 13 times in all (6+7).
• All the names of Satan are divisible by thirteen.
• In Mark 7 Jesus mentions thirteen things that defile a person (evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride and foolishness).

 

Elsewhere,

• The ancient Hebrews thought 13 was unlucky because the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the letter M, which is the first letter in the word “mavet,” meaning death.
• In Norse mythology, 12 benevolent gods were gathering in a hall and the evil god Loki attacked the group. Loki was the 13th guest, and the god Balder was killed in the melee.
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt was quite fearful of the number 13, and he took great pains to avoid hosting a meal for a group of that size. It is said that if he had a cancellation and it looked as if there might be 13 people to lunch, he would invite his secretary to join them so there wouldn’t be 13.
• Industrialist Henry Ford wouldn’t do business on Friday, the 13th.
• Multimillionaire Paul Getty once stated “I wouldn’t care to be one of thirteen at a table.”
• Some speculate that a fear of the number 13 is the reason we recognize only 12 constellations in the Zodiac, omitting a thirteenth… Ophiuchus ( the Serpent Holder) that, by its location, could be included.
• Years ago, London bakers were subject to harsh penalties if they were caught selling bread in what was called short weight. The bakers would add an extra loaf to each dozen to be sure the sale met the minimum weight requirement. They avoided the word thirteen and the process of adding an extra loaf became known as the “baker’s dozen.”
• Some airlines do not have a 13th row.
• Most tall buildings do not have a 13th floor.
• Many hotel guests refuse to stay in Room 13, so rooms are frequently numbered 12, 12A, and 14.
• The 13th card of the Tarot is the card of Death.
• The composer, Arnold Schoenberg, was a noted triskaidekaphobe. He died as he had predicted at the age of 76 (7+6=13), on a Friday 13th at 13 minutes to midnight.
• In April 1970, NASA launched Apollo 13 at 1313 hours Central Time from pad 39. The flight was commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. “Jack” Swigert as Command Module pilot and Fred W. Haise as Lunar Module pilot. (Swigert was a late replacement for the original CM pilot Ken Mattingly, who was grounded by the flight surgeon after exposure to German measles.) They were scheduled for rest periods beginning 13 minutes past the hour and on April 13 at 21:07:53 CST (55:54:53 Ground Elapsed Time) an oxygen tank exploded and the mission had to be aborted. The rest is history – and a movie, Apollo 13, based on ‘Lost Moon’, Jim Lovell’s and Jeffrey Kluger’s book about the event.

Insignia of the ill-fated Apollo XIII Mission

 

Friday the 13th Myths:

• If you cut your hair on Friday the 13th, someone in your family will die.
• A child born on Friday the 13th will be unlucky for life.
• If a funeral procession passes you on Friday the 13th, you will be the next to die.

 

In the United States

• the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
• thirteen colonies rebelled against British Rule and King George III in what led to the American Revolutionary War and the eventual birth of the United States of America. The colonies were Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
• there are thirteen stripes on the USA flag to commemorate these original colonies.

USA flag – Stars and Stripes

 

 

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Significant Number Factoid Friday – Seven

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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They’ve been ‘beautiful’, they’ve been ‘big’ and they’ve been ‘unusual’. Today we have the number seven, another of what are known as ‘significant’ numbers, so-called because of their use and the beliefs surrounding them.

Enjoy.

 

7 Seven

The number seven is the most mystical of all numbers. It is considered by a great many people to be ‘lucky’.

It is a number that is mentioned many times in the Bible where it indicates perfection and has its roots in ancient Jewish history.

In the Old Testament for example,

• The Creation established the pattern of a seven day week.
• The seventh day was a day of rest.
• Land was to lie fallow every seventh year to allow it to recover its nutrients.
• Noah led the clean animals into the ark in sets of seven pairs for each species.
• Solomon took seven years to build the temple in Jerusalem.
• The Torah mentions that the Sabbatical, or holy year, occurred every seven years.
• The Israelites were told to march around the walls of Jericho seven times, and their enemies would be defeated.
• The symbolic Jewish candlestick has seven branches.

This view of the number seven continued in the New Testament.

• A disciple asked Jesus, “How many times should we forgive our brethren?” Jesus replied, “70 times 7”.
• Revelations 1:16 states, “He had in his right hand seven stars.”
• Also in Revelations, the number of seals is seven.

 

And beyond the Bible, we find the number seven in other religions and societies.

• The ancient Greeks considered the number seven to be lucky. They believed it to be the perfect number.
• In ancient Egypt there were seven paths to heaven.
• In ancient Babylon there were seven branches on their tree of life.
• The Arabs carried on this belief and built seven holy temples.
• The Goths made sure they worshiped the seven deities.
• The Japanese also had seven gods. (In 1995, to celebrate the Japanese Emperor’s seven year reign 17 runners ran 7,777 meters round the imperial palace at 7 minutes past seven on the 7th day of the 7th month.)
• The Chinese saw seven as the number governing female life.
• Even the Scottish Masons made sure the number seven had relevance in their rites, and their aprons were made with seven tassels on them.

 

In the US too there are examples of the occurrence of the number seven.

• The Founding Fathers declared independence from Britain during the seventh month.
• There are seven articles to the US constitution.
• And the city of Washington D.C. was built on the 77th longitude.

 

The number still occurs because of it being thought lucky such as the drink 7-Up and the Boeing airplanes which are always 7?7.

 

Then there are the Seven Wonders of the world.

The original seven wonders were:

• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
• Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
• Colossus of Rhodes
• Lighthouse of Alexandria

(The earliest lists had the Ishtar Gate as the seventh wonder of the world instead of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.)

Map of the original Seven Wonders of the World

In 2001 an initiative was started by the Swiss corporation New7Wonders Foundation to choose the New7Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments.

Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006. Egyptians were not happy that the only surviving original wonder, the Great Pyramid of Giza, would have to compete with the likes of the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and other landmarks, calling the project absurd. In response, Giza was named an honorary Candidate.

The results, announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal, were: 

• Great Wall of China
• Petra (Jordan)
• Christ the Redeemer (Brazil)
• Machu Picchu (Peru)
• Chichen Itza (Mexico)
• Colosseum (Italy)
• Taj Mahal (India)

 

There have also been several atempts to compile a list of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The main candidates include:

• Grand Canyon
• Great Barrier Reef
• Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
• Mount Everest
• Aurora
• Parícutin volcano
• Victoria Falls

 

And, of course, in the field of entertainment the number seven has featured in several memorable movies, examples of which include:

• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
• Se7en
• The Magnificent Seven
• The Seven Samurai
• The Seventh Seal
• Seven Pounds