Number symbolism - 7

7

The sum of the spiritual 3 and the material 4 is 7. In medieval education, students pursued the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy), a total of seven subjects, collectively known as the liberal arts. Pythagorean interest in the mathematical patterns in music gives 7 a privileged role, for there are seven distinct notes in the musical scale—corresponding roughly to the white notes on a piano. Counting from 1, the eighth note up the scale is the exceedingly harmonious octave, which is how the name arose.

The number 7 is often considered lucky, and it has a definite mystique, perhaps because it is a prime number—that is, it cannot be obtained by multiplying two smaller numbers together. There are seven days of the week, named after various ancient gods and planets (Sun-day, Moon-day, Tiw’s-day, Woden’s-day, Thor’s-day, Frigg’s-day, Saturn-day). Tiw was a Norse god of war, parallel to Mars in role but to Zeus in etymology, and Frigg was the Old English version of Frea (or Freya), wife of Woden (= Odin).

Shakespeare wrote of the seven ages of man, an idea that goes back much earlier. In China 7 determines the stages of female life: a girl gets her “milk teeth” at seven months, loses them at seven years, reaches puberty at 2 × 7 = 14 years, and reaches menopause at 7 × 7 = 49.

The phases of the Moon last approximately seven days, with 4 × 7 = 28 days in a month and also in a female menstrual period. Many cultures recognized seven planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) in the sense of “wandering bodies,” unlike the “fixed stars,” which retain the same relative position in the night sky. The seven candles of the Jewish menorah that burned in the Tabernacle symbolized the Creation and, according to the English scholar Robert Graves, may be connected to the seven planets of antiquity.

In ancient Egypt there were seven paths to heaven and seven heavenly cows; Osiris led his father through seven halls of the underworld. The seven deadly sins are well-known in Christian tradition. The number 7 was the fundamental number of the Rosicrucians, who used it as an organizational basis for their text Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz (1459; Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosycross). The number was also central to the cult of Mithra, which believed the soul rose to paradise through seven planetary spheres. The Christian idea of seven layers of purgatory may be related.

The number 7 features prominently in folk sayings. Breaking a mirror leads to seven years of bad luck. In Iran a cat has seven lives, not the nine of Western myth.

The most common numbers in the Indian Vedas are 3 and 7. Agni, the god of fire, has seven wives, mothers, or sisters and can produce seven flames. The sun god has seven horses to pull his heavenly chariot. In the Rigveda there are seven parts of the world, seven seasons, and seven heavenly fortresses. The cow has 21 = 3 × 7 names.

In the Hippocratic tradition of medicine, 7 rules the illnesses of the body, with painful illnesses lasting 7, 14, or 21 days. In Germany it was believed that pigs would not contract hog cholera if they were treated for seven days with water containing asphodel. In Jewish magic a fever can be cured by taking seven prickles from seven palm trees, seven chips from seven beams, seven nails from seven bridges, seven ashes from seven ovens…terminating in seven hairs from the beard of an old dog.

8

The number 8 is generally considered to be an auspicious number by numerologists. The square of any odd number, less one, is always a multiple of 8 (for example, 9 − 1 = 8, 25 − 1 = 8 × 3, 49 − 1 = 8 × 6), a fact that can be proved mathematically. In Babylonian myth there were seven spheres plus an eighth realm, the fixed stars, where the gods lived. As a result, 8 is often associated with paradise. Muslims believe that there are seven hells but eight paradises, signifying God’s mercy. In Buddhism 8 is a lucky number, possibly because of the eight petals of the lotus, a plant associated with luck in India and a favourite Buddhist symbol.

In China, just as the number 7 determines the life of a woman, 8 determines that of a man. A boy gets his milk teeth at eight months, loses them at eight years, reaches puberty at 2 × 8 = 16, and loses sexual virility at 8 × 8 = 64. The Yijing, which describes a system of divination using yarrow stalks, involves 64 = 8 × 8 configurations.

9

In contrast to 8, the number 9 often represents pain or sadness. The 16th-century Catholic theologian Peter Bungus pointed out that the Ninth Psalm predicts the coming of the Antichrist. In Islamic cosmology the universe is made from nine spheres—the traditional eight of Ptolemy, plus a ninth added by the Arab astronomer Thābit ibn Qurrah about 900 CE to explain the precession of the equinoxes.

In Anglo-Saxon cultures 9 crops up frequently. The early inhabitants of Wales used nine steps to measure distance in legal contexts; for example, a dog that has bitten someone can be killed if it is nine steps away from its owner’s house, and nine people assaulting one constituted a genuine attack. In German law the ownership of land terminated after the ninth generation. Many folk sayings involve the number 9. A stitch in time saves nine. Cloud nine is the ultimate in happiness. A cat has nine lives. In Greek mythology the River Styx, across which souls were ferried to the underworld, is described as having nine twists.

10

As already stated, 10 was the Pythagorean symbol of perfection or completeness. Humans have ten fingers and ten toes. Counting on fingers probably led to the decimal number system, with its symbols 0–9 and its place values whereby the 7 in 703 counts as 7 hundreds, but in 173 it is 7 tens and in 507 it is 7 units. We consider powers of 10, such as 100 or 1,000, to be “round numbers.”

However, there is nothing special about 10, and any other number from 2 onward can be used as a number base. Indeed, computers use base 2, or the binary number system, written using only the symbols 0 and 1. Mathematicians distinguish “genuine” properties of numbers, which are true independent of any notational base, with “accidental” ones that arise only because of the notational system—for example, that 153 (the number of fish in the Gospel According to John) is the sum of the cubes of its digits,

13 + 53 + 33 = 1 + 125 + 27 = 153.

Occurrences of 10 and its powers are so common that there is no point in listing them here. However, the Ten Commandments of the Bible deserve mention, especially given that Buddhism too has its own ten commandments—five for monks and five for the laity.

11

Sandwiched between the two auspicious and important numbers 10 and 12, the number 11 generally has negative connotations. Bungus stated that 11 has no connection with the divine, and medieval theology refers to the “11 heads of error.” Because at any time one of the 12 zodiacal signs is hidden behind the Sun, the number 11 is often associated with the zodiac. In the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish Tiamat, the god of chaos, is supported by 11 monsters. The ancient Roman equivalent of a police force comprised 11 men whose job was to hunt down criminals. Several sports involve teams with 11 members (American football, football [soccer], cricket).

12

The number 12 is strongly associated with the heavens—the 12 months, the 12 signs of the zodiac, and the 12 stations of the Moon and of the Sun. The ancients recognized 12 main northern stars and 12 main southern stars. There are 24 = 2 × 12 hours in the day, of which 12 are daytime and the other 12 nighttime.

The number 12 is the product of the sacred and the secular (3 × 4); it is the sum of the numbers of life and good fortune (5 + 7). It thus incorporates many distinct virtues. In Christianity it is the number of Christ’s disciples, and it occurs many other times in the Bible—for example, the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Several cultures have used numbers based on 12 (duodecimal); the 12 inches in a foot are one familiar relic of such a system.

13

Triskaidekaphobes believe 13 to be unlucky, especially when the 13th day of the month is a Friday, a fear that was reinforced by the explosion that almost wrecked the Apollo 13 lunar spacecraft in 1970. Skeptics note that it returned to Earth safely, unlike any other manned spacecraft that has exploded, making its crew some of the luckiest people on the planet.

The fear of 13 may relate to Judas Iscariot’s having been the 13th person to arrive at the Last Supper, but its negative undertones go back much earlier, probably because an extra 13th item spoils the auspicious 12. There are 13 lunar months in the year (with a small error), which led the Maya and the Hebrews to consider 13 as auspicious. In medieval theology 13 = 10 + 3 (Commandments plus Trinity), and therefore the number had some positive aspects

14

The number 14 is an even number with attributes similar to those of 7. A period of 14 days is half of the Moon’s 28-day cycle, so it takes 14 days (one fortnight, short for fourteen-night) for the Moon to wax from new to full or to wane from full to new. In ancient Egypt Osiris was cut into 14 parts. The number is important in Islam; the Arabic alphabet contains 14 Sun letters and 14 Moon letters. In medieval Germany 14 innocent beings gave legal protection to whomever they accompanied.

15

As the product of two sacred numbers (3 × 5), 15 naturally has religious significance. In ancient Nineveh the goddess Ishtar was served by 15 priests, and the city had 15 gates. The 3 × 3 magic square has 15 as its magic constant, and in Babylon this square was associated with Ishtar.

16

Because 16 is the square of 4, it inherits favourable attributes. It was popular in ancient India; the Vedas talk of 16-fold incantations, and the Chinese-Indian goddess Pussa has 16 arms. The Rosicrucians believed that nature consisted of 16 elements.

17

In ancient times, in the region of Urartu, near Mount Ararat, the local deity was offered 17-fold sacrifices. The biblical Flood began on the 17th day of the second month and ended on the 17th day of the seventh month. Greek superstition holds the 17th day of the month to be the best day to cut wood to build a boat.

Some followers of Sufism believe that the most sacred name of God has 17 letters. Mathematicians find 17 unusual because a regular 17-sided polygon can be constructed using the Euclidean tools of ruler and compass, a fact discovered by the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss at the age of 19.

18

Because 18 is twice 9, it has some significance by association with 9. In Norse mythology Haldan has 18 sons and Odin knows 18 things. The number is sacred to the Sufi mystics who were known in the West as the whirling dervishes, and their custom was for a guest to bring gifts in multiples of 18. The Hindu Mahabharata has 18 books, and the Jewish prayer shemone ʿesre (Hebrew: “eighteen”) originally consisted of 18 blessings.

19

Eclipses of the Sun tend to recur in periods of 19 years. The Babylonians considered the 19th day of the month to be unlucky because it was 49 days from the beginning of the previous month (add 30), and, since 49 = 7 × 7, it was a day of great portent for good or evil. In Islamic numerology 19 is the value of the word Wāḥid (Arabic: “One”), an important name for God.

20

The number 20 has little mystical significance, but it is historically interesting because the Mayan number system used base 20. When counting time the Maya replaced 20 × 20 = 400 by 20 × 18 = 360 to approximate the number of days in the year. Many old units of measurement involve 20 (a score)—for example, 20 shillings to the pound in predecimal British money.

100

Because our notational system for numbers is decimal (base 10), the number 100 takes on a significance that it would probably not possess if we employed other systems of notation. It is a round number and holds hints of perfection. The Western calendar is divided into the decade (10 years), century (100 years), and millennium (1,000 years), with the century as the most important unit.

Thus, one refers to the 20th or 21st century as a way to establish a broad historical period. In the game of cricket, scoring 100 runs (a century) is a major feat for a batsman, but to be out at 99 is a significant failure. A half-century (50) is also a sign of good play, whereas falling short at 49 is undesirable. (If we had seven fingers and counted in base 7, we would write 49 as 100, so presumably 49 would be considered an excellent score in such a culture.)

The dollar is divided into 100 cents, and many other currencies (pound sterling, euro) involve a similar subdivision of the main unit of currency. The Celsius temperature scale has 100 degrees as the boiling point of water. “A hundred” often just means “a lot”; for example, the Roman centurion did not always command exactly 100 men.

By the same token, 101 often means “a lot” too, but it is manifestly bigger than 100, and its lack of roundness makes it sound more precise, such as in the Disney-Company-produced 101 Dalmatians (1961).

Nature’s numbers

Many aspects of the natural world display strong numerical patterns, and these may have been the source of some number mysticism. For example, crystals can have rotational symmetries that are twofold, threefold, fourfold, and sixfold but not fivefold—a curious exception that was recognized empirically by the ancient Greeks and proved mathematically in the 19th century.

An especially significant number is the golden ratio, usually symbolized by the Greek letter ϕ. It goes back to early Greek mathematics under the name “extreme and mean ratio” and refers to a division of a line segment in such a manner that the ratio of the whole to the larger part is the same as that of the larger part to the smaller. This ratio is precisely (1 + Square root of√5)/2, or approximately 1.618034.

The popular name golden ratio, or golden number, appears to have been introduced by the German mathematician Martin Ohm in Die reine Elementarmathematik (1835; “Pure Elementary Mathematics”). If not, the term is not much older and certainly does not go back to ancient Greece as is often claimed.

In art and architecture the golden number is often said to be associated with elegance of proportion; some claim that it was used by the Greeks in the design of the Parthenon. There is little evidence for these claims. Any building has so many different lengths that some ratios are bound to be close to the golden number or for that matter to any other ratio that is not too large or small.

The golden number is also often cited in connection with the shell of the nautilus, but this too is a misunderstanding. The nautilus shell has a beautiful mathematical form, a so-called logarithmic (or equiangular) spiral.

In such a spiral each successive turn is magnified in size by a fixed amount. There is a logarithmic spiral associated with the golden number, and in this case the fixed amount is precisely ϕ. However, the spiral of the nautilus does not have the ratio ϕ. Logarithmic spirals exist with any given number as their ratio, and the nautilus ratio has no special significance in mathematics.

The golden number is, however, legitimately associated with plants. This connection involves the Fibonacci numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144,…), in which each number, starting with 2, is the sum of the previous two numbers. These numbers were first discussed in 1202 by the Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisano, who seems to have been given the nickname Fibonacci (son of Bonaccio) in the 19th century.

The ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers, such as 34/21 or 55/34, gets closer and closer to ϕ as the size of the numbers increases. As a result, Fibonacci numbers and ϕ enjoy an intimate mathematical connection.

Fibonacci numbers are very common in the plant kingdom. Many flowers have 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, or 34 petals. Other numbers occur less commonly; typically they are twice a Fibonacci number, or they belong to the “anomalous series” 1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29,…, with the same rule of formation as the Fibonacci numbers but different initial values.

Moreover, Fibonacci numbers occur in the seed heads of sunflowers and daisies. These are arranged as two families of interpenetrating spirals, and they typically contain, say, 55 clockwise spirals and 89 counterclockwise ones or some other pair of Fibonacci numbers.

This numerology is genuine, and it is related to the growth pattern of the plants. As the growing tip sprouts, new primordia—clumps of cells that will become special features such as seeds—arise along a generative spiral at successive multiples of a fixed angle. This angle is the one that produces the closest packing of primordia, and for sound mathematical reasons it is the golden angle: a fraction (1 − 1/ϕ) of a full circle, or roughly 137.5 degrees.

Number’s nature

What exactly is a number? It is easy to see what two sheep or two apples are; you can find them in the real world. But what is 2? You never meet 2 in a field or a fruit bowl. The symbol 2 is not a number but a symbol for a number. Until the 19th century, numbers were considered to be given by God—they simply were. No one had to define the concept. Even in the 19th century the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker said, “God made the integers, all else is the work of man.”

The 19th-century German logician Gottlob Frege attempted to define a number as “the class of all classes that can be put into one-to-one correspondence with a given class.” Basically, what he had in mind was that the abstract number 2 can be considered as the class of all pairs of objects: two sheep, two apples, two whatever. Lump all the pairs together, and the result is a single well-defined object that captures the essence of

2. Mathematicians would have been entirely happy with this definition, save for one problem. The English philosopher Bertrand Russell pointed out that the phrase “class of all classes that…” may not always have a sensible meaning. He stated his famous paradox about “the class of all classes that do not contain themselves.” Equivalently, it is the paradox of the barber who shaves everyone who does not shave himself. So who shaves the barber? Or imagine a catalog of all catalogs that do not list themselves. Does this supercatalog list itself or not?

Today, numbers are viewed as logical constructs, and their existence holds good only in a rather abstract mathematical sense in which something exists if it is not logically self-contradictory. Numbers are defined in terms of conceptually simpler objects, sets, through a kind of counting procedure.

The Russell paradox is no longer a problem, but it has been replaced by the far deeper paradox of the Austrian-born American logician Kurt Gödel. Gödel’s theorem states that if arithmetic is not self-contradictory—that is, if numbers exist in the mathematical sense—then that fact can never be proved mathematically. So perhaps numbers really are as mystical as many people believe.

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