"Irrational" feelings about numbers.

[Kaputnik]

Every now and then, I check my Amazon profile and see how many helpful votes my reviews have generated. Even though my last review (for a no longer offered journal with Tomoe River paper) was a year ago today, the number of up votes has been slowly growing, and is now up to 997.

One of my first thoughts was, "I wonder if I'll hit 1000". Then I thought, "why should that be anything special?" Is it because it's a largish round number, a multiple of ten, a power of ten?

997 is special in its own way. It's a prime number, and the largest prime less than 1000. But then, why should that be special either?

How many of us do have these "irrational" feelings about certain numbers? What does it say about the way our minds work? I have to admit that I'm more interested in the questions than in finding definite answers for them, which is probably just as well.

[guyy]

I hear you; numbers like pi and e and sqrt 2 are just totally irrational.

[Pterodactylus]

At least I feel similar, but most likely this is common for human beings as we always try to measure, quantify, compete with others, reach goals, go beyond borders, try to win, extend our knowledge,.....

Measuring not only our and others performance, work, reputation, but also everything around us, the environment we live, nature, time, weight, dimensions, relations, up to the universe ..... the list is endless, this is part of human nature.

And behind all this there are numbers or if you want to see it in a more generic way Mathematics.



A couple of years I posted my 1000th picture and it also felt like something special, even if the 1000th picture by itself had nothing special which made it superior to all the others.

I just thought, hey incredible this is a big number, now it has 4 digits instead of 3, and I never thought that I would post 1000 pictures when I started.... and I was happy, it just felt like an important milestone.

[CrayonAngelss]

I do the same thing. My step-tracker on my watch yesterday said I was at 21,970 steps (I never sit still) and I thought "oh I should try to hit 22k..." But why? What real difference does it make? Certain numbers follow me around, too. Though I wonder if they are REALLY following me, or if it's all a coincidence? I see 3:16 on the clock almost everyday, a bit less often now, but consistently still. This has been going on for YEARS. 8 was a constant number for me as a child. Our house number was 8, along with my grandma's condo, and then her nursing room number. And being born on the 17th, I'm supposedly ruled by 8.

[manoeuver]

Human existence hinges on finding meaning where there is none. Keep up the good work!

[Marsilius]

Human existence hinges on finding meaning where there is none. Keep up the good work!

Fun with Apophenia!

[Stands on Feet]

There is no such thing as an uninteresting natural number:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox

[Marsilius]

In music circles there is a thing for honoring the birth or death year of a composer. It is useful for marketing, but it still bothers me for a number of reasons: Why is a birthday more important than another day? Sometimes a more famous one gets all the attention? Why not every day, or other years? It is artificial and floods the market with the usual suspects. My favorite anonymous composers get left out of the fun. But I don't get too worked up about it.

Then there are those folks that need to do things a certain number of times, or even even-up and do them symmetrically with each hand . . . (not saying I have that problem) . . .

[SchaumburgSwan]

Hi,

I'm waiting for the 333333 km to appear in our car... only 800 km to go. :-)

Best
Jens

[Ron Z]

Hi,

I'm waiting for the 333333 km to appear in our car... only 800 km to go. :-)

Best
Jens

...and chances are that you will be distracted, or forget to watch, and so will miss it. That's what invariably happens to me.

[FredRydr]

...and chances are that you will be distracted, or forget to watch, and so will miss it. That's what invariably happens to me.
Last October, I was prepared for what was coming up on my '07 Volvo wagon. Those are miles.

55333

[FredRydr]

...and chances are that you will be distracted, or forget to watch, and so will miss it. That's what invariably happens to me.
Last October, I was prepared for what was coming up on my '07 Volvo wagon. Those are miles.

55333

And just to keep it pen-related:

55334

[penwash]

Human existence hinges on finding meaning where there is none. Keep up the good work!

Oh that would be very sad indeed if it were true.

I believe that it is human's "hunger" for meaning and purpose leads them (us?) to search or attach those to things. Numbers, happen to be one of those things that is convenient and available.

[Ole Juul]

Then there are those folks that need to do things a certain number of times, or even even-up and do them symmetrically with each hand . . . (not saying I have that problem) . . .

Yes, I feel sorry for those that have that problem. I don't have that problem. I enjoy doing it. :)

Partly it's a musician's thing. Fitting beats into regular bars and unconsciously marking the 4th and 8th bar. Also, being a jazzer, a little light goes on at 32. (ie. the 4th 8)

[DaveBj]

I just watched a program a couple days ago on Benford's law, which states that within any large group of numbers, no matter what is being measured, numbers starting with the digit 1 will constitute 30%, numbers starting with 2 -- 17%, with 3 -- 12%, and so on in a logarithmic curve. Totally crazy, but it's true, no matter where one looks.

D

[Marsilius]

Then there are those folks that need to do things a certain number of times, or even even-up and do them symmetrically with each hand . . . (not saying I have that problem) . . .

Yes, I feel sorry for those that have that problem. I don't have that problem. I enjoy doing it. :)

Partly it's a musician's thing. Fitting beats into regular bars and unconsciously marking the 4th and 8th bar. Also, being a jazzer, a little light goes on at 32. (ie. the 4th 8)


Yes, musicians tend to have it. Music was traditionally referred to as "concordia discors" (order out of chaos) and as "numbers made sound." So I tend to think of music compositions as numbers chosen from random chaos to create patterns, and composers of counterpoint are acting as pattern recognition and creation machines.

Ole Juul, 64 is a number that occupies some folks studying the music of Johannes Ockeghem . . . perhaps his sections were twice as long . . .