This thread was prompted by the current survey on xkcd, one question of which is which number (out of 1 to 5) is your favourite.
From a very early age when I first learned numbers, I somehow developed very strong ideas about the personalities of the digits. I still can’t help but think of them this way:
0 - a ghost. Real but slips away if you try to interact.
1 - stupid but workmanlike
2 - like your little brother, sort of playful
3 - not entirely trustworthy. Related to 9
4 - motherly, friendly, protective, nice to everyone
5 - paternal, a bit tough but practical and gets the job done
6 - your older brother, when he’s in a good mood and plays with you
7 - a bit strange, that weird girl who lives down the street and dresses funny and never joins in
8 - a stern but friendly authority figure.
9 - a dark witchy character. Quite powerful and not always nice.
0- The unseen Force of the universe
1- The loneliest number that you’d ever do
2- Can be as bad as one
3- The Holy Trinity
4- The Four Horseman (Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, and Barry Windham- not Ole)
5- Odd
6- Number Six, from The Prisoner
7- Micky Mantle
8- The reason that 7 ate 9
9- Heaven
My initial reaction was “no, that’s dumb,” but I thought about it a bit. I think I perceive 7 as kind of brusque. Maybe it’s because of the very decisive strokes involved in writing it.
I’ve never thought about numbers having a personality, I can’t quite wrap my head around that. OTOH, when I’m doing math I usually root for the number 6 to appear more often in the answer than number 8. For instance, a result of 548,688 makes me a little sad while 546,866 makes me a little happier. No idea why.
Same here. I’m a little fascinated at the relationship people have with numbers, though. I mean, I do have a go-to number when choosing a uniform or something, that being 12. But it’s just a number like all the others.
I don’t assign personalities to numbers, but I do associate other odd qualities such as colors/brightness/moods with them.
1 - simple, bland
2 - cold, hard
3 - warm, thin
4 - sharp, pressing
5 - worrisome
6 - relieved, but cold
7 - warm, bright, sunny
8 - hot, big, enough for everyone
9 - uncomfortably bloated
Daniel Tammet, a savant, describes qualities for every integer up to 10,000. He appears not to be making them up, as he is consistent in his reporting for each number.
1 - nice guy; kind of rakish
2 - priggish young lady
3- kind of a tomboy
4 - practical (and for some reason, blonde)
5 - sort of a frat boy type
6 - cocquettish
7 - big man on campus sort, but not quite as wild as 5
8- wise, fat old uncle
9 - matronly, sensible
10- Bossy but dependable
No personalities, but I do have to say that some numbers just seem preferable to me somehow. Often they include 7 and 3 and are often prime.
3, 7, 13, 17, 21, 27, 37.
My locker number in high school was 113 and I thought that was just the best.
I did when I was little. I liked the even numbers better, and thought nine was just mean. I think it’s because I was learning about addition, and had found out that adding nine to a number made the ones digit decrease by one. So 15 + 9 was 24, and the ones digit in the answer was now a 4.