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Old 08-18-2005, 10:01 PM   #16
Lyta_Underhill
Haunted Halfling
 
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: an uncounted length of steps--floating between air molecules
Posts: 841
Lyta_Underhill has just left Hobbiton.
Playing with codes to pass the time til eternity...

Quote:
1 -- oneself, holds importance because it is representative of the individual
3 -- ?
5 -- number of digits on one hand, an easy-to-work-with sensical number (as is 10: two sets of five, total number of fingers, base-10)
7 -- ?
9 -- three squared, three sets of three...
Also, the numbers 2,3,5 and 7 are prime numbers, meaning divisible only by the number itself and 1. Perhaps it is something in the non-reducibility of 3 and 7 that make them significant? Well, in some realms, anyway! But then where does that leave 2 and 5? [I just noticed that Hilde Bracegirdle beat me to this observation by some years...oh well!] Anyway, I think the significance of numbers in any work or in any connotation boils down to how much fun human brains have when playing with numbers. Just think what would be significant if our system was hexadecimal...I'm sure there are lots of hex-code writers out there who have really obscure jokes based on some orderly arrangement of base 16 numbers, and perhaps one day, when computers really do become self-aware, their humor and literature will have a rich history of hexadecimal system significators...

Cheers!
Lyta
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