My Days Are Numbered

I'm kicking this off with the excellent "Three Is A Magic Number" by Bob Dorough, which contains a lot of multiples of three and observations on the mathematics of that number.

I don't know if I am normal. Each day usually starts when I wake by seeing the sun rise on my alarm clock (well, it turns from black to orange), normally 5:45 on a working day, heralded by my birdsong alarm.

Then I wash, shave, shower, go down and make coffee and always see my Smart Meter. This is an evening reading (20:56) from winter, hence the £6.66 reading for 155 kWh, so a lot of numbers in there.

My house has a number, not a name, and for work today, I had to identify 1,200 addresses to send system emails to, and 10 to manually email.

I have a telephone and it has an eleven-digit number (thirteen if you add the international prefix).

When I cooked lunch, I set the oven to 180° and timed it for 25 minutes.

The buses I catch are identified by numbers 12, 36 and 63, plus others.

A bit of math from Stephen Pyle's "Book of Heroic Failures", though I could see this happening in America today.

THE MOST INACCURATE VALUE OF PI (π)

Pi (π) is a mathematical constant which is the ratio of the circumference of the circle to its diameter. It is a never-ending number and, for most calculations, is taken to its third decimal place (3.142).

However, in 1897, the General Assembly of Indiana passed a Bill ruling that the value of Pi was four. This ensured that all mathematical and engineering calculations in the State would be wrong. It would, for example, mean that a pendulum clock would gain about fifteen minutes every hour.

I recently changed the way we order pizzas. I used to get 2 x 10" one for me, one for Fiona and the area of 2 x 10" pizzas is 30 square inches for £16, so roughly £1 for 2 square inches, but we waste a lot of it.

A 14" half and half pizza is £12.50 for 22 square inches, roughly the same price per inch but we don't waste any.

My bank card has a four-digit PIN, though my phone has a six-digit one. This does beg the question: if four numbers are good enough for a bank card, why do some basic apps require a twelve-digit password?

The only safe place for a password is in your head. If it is too complex, you write it down, and then it becomes a security risk.

I could go on, I have plenty of vinyl records that play at 33⅓ revolutions per minute and CDs at 500 revolutions per minute.

This is very much a stream of consciousness piece about numbers and how they touch us in our lives. As I kid, I went for walks and bike rides, but now I use my phone to count my steps (although I did go through a pedometer phase. It never worked for me).

This is my work desk, and you can see the devices on it are crammed with numbers. You do know that our numerals are Arabic and zero was not always part of our mathematics.

The move from zero as merely a placeholder by the Mayans and Babylonians – a tool to distinguish larger numbers from smaller ones to a digit of its own was established in India by a man named Aryabhata in the 5th Century. A mathematician and astronomer, Aryabhata contributed multiple mathematical concepts, crucial to maths as we know it today, including the value of pi being 3.14 and the formula for a right-angled triangle. The prior absence of zero created difficulty in carrying out simple calculations.

Conclusion

We can't really escape numbers, though I remember that Catweazle was shocked that we used alarm clocks rather than the dawn to wake up.

I know your numbers will be different from mine, and no one will be the same.

I must thank you for making your way through this stream of consciousness of mine.