Archive for September, 2009

09-09-09

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Numerical symmetry makes for a good looking number. Numerology is discredited by some, but it is still fun. ”Pythagoras most of all seems to have honored and advanced the study concerned with numbers, having taken it away from the use of merchants and likening all things to numbers,” wrote Aristoxenus, an ancient Greek historian, in the 4th century B.C. As part of his obsession with numbers both mathematically and divine, and like many mathematicians before and since, Pythagoras noted that nine in particular had many unique properties.  Any grade-schooler could tell you, for example, that the sum of the two-digits resulting from nine multiplied by any other single-digit number will equal nine. So 9×3=27, and 2+7=9. Multiply nine by any two, three or four-digit number and the sums of those will also break down to nine. For example: 9×62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9. Sept. 9 also happens to be the 252nd day of the year (2 + 5 +2).