The “do you have a birthday in November?” thread got me curious if others have a similar notion to mine about the relationship between these things. The fact that the signs spread across two months, and that there’s a relationship between the signs of the Zodiac and the constellations, and even the “years” of the Chinese zodiac, has always made me wonder why our fascination with “12” is as strong as it it.
What are your views on it all?
12 was a significant number in a lot of early civilizations, such as Babylonian. And the year divides up into 12 periods fairly nicely.
I think I once read that the zodiac signs used to coincide with the months pretty well, but because of some astronomical phenomenon (precession?), they’ve slipped out of sync over the millenia.
As to the validity of horoscopes? Mostly bunk, but I’m not entirely convinced that there’s nothing to it. For example, the best soccer and hockey players were born in January, February, and March. People born in low-light months are also more prone to depression. Coincidence? I don’t know.
Yeah. The “First Point of Aries” used to coincide with the Vernal Equinox but precession has moved it almost a sign away.
The Age of Aquarius is another thing that’s puzzling. We’re supposed to be approaching that from the Age of Pisces, but the dates for such a transition are all over the map. Millennia apart in some cases.
Astrology is my one thing.
Homeopathy? Bunk. Anti-Vaccine woo woo? Garbage. Organics? Idiocy. Tarot Cards? We’re just projecting what we want to see on them. Ghosts? No. Magick? Waste of time. Gods? No logical reason to believe any of them exist. Science is the best way we have of seeing the world, humans evolved from goo, big bang, etc. I know all this.
But I obsessively draw charts for all my friends, and I insist on knowing everyone’s birthsign. Name a random day in the year, and I can rattle off the sign that day belongs to. I know that the relationships of everyone around me are a bit in turmoil because Venus is currently retrograde through Libra. This is also the best time to end a relationship.
I know it’s inconsistent. I know there’s nothing that makes astrology any less illogical bunk than any of the other stuff I dismiss out of hand. But the thing is, it makes me happy to believe it, and study it. I find it fascinating.
But yes, everyone is right. The dates have changed over time. The sky has shifted, and the dates are based on an ancient sky.
And now I can’t remember the name of that book I read that addressed this. The author had a two-part argument. The first part is that it’s important to an athlete to have practice, added coaching, encouragement, and a feeling of success at an early age. The second part is that youth leagues have an age limit date. The children that are oldest when they begin are larger and better coordinated than the children that are younger by a significant margin. They make a better showing and get the attention, extra coaching, and when they make the all-star teams, they get a longer season, so they get more playing practice.
According to the book, different sports have different youth cut-off dates, and therefore a different three months of prime results. The name of the book may or may not come to me later.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell?
That has intrigued me because I can easily see how a Base 10 system came to be, but the Base 12 system (aside from the divisibility by 2, 3, 4, and 6) doesn’t seem to have that obvious connection to body parts. What else can explain it?
Besides divisibility, I don’t know. But that seems like a pretty good reason.
You mentioned months in a year, and signs in the zodiac.
How many eggs in a dozen?
How many inches in a foot?
How many Earth years equal one of Jupiter’s years? (Hint: It coincides with the Chinese calendar.)
How many hours in a day or night?
How many pence in a shilling? (Old system.)
Cleary it’s a number that we place great importance on.
Well how would you feel if every birthday you had was on a dreary, drizzling, dull, dour day? Of course, if there is any validity to it at all based on some kind of seasonal effects it would only be valid for one hemisphere.
To the first thing, I was born on November first. Yes, I’m a saint. 
To the second, that makes sense. I think that the depression connection was based on a US study, but I don’t have any real cite. Even then, one has to wonder if there are differences between those born in Seattle and those born in San Diego.
This prompted me to find my copy of http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Dictionary-Curious-Interesting-Numbers/dp/0140080295 and look up 12. Among the 3 1/2 pages devoted to it, there’s this fact:
The book is fascinating in and of itself, but 12 does get a fair amount of ink.
o/~ One of these things just doesn’t belong here … o/~
All of those are man-made (and thus lend itself to being that way because it’s a number we place great importance on) except the Earth year / Jupiter year thing, that’s a natural occurance and has no bearing on being a number we place great importance on.
(Other citations are from the field of religion, or at least Judeo-Christian religion, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it popped up in others): twelve tribes of Israel / sons of Jacob, twelve apostles, and the 144,000 redeemed in the book of Revelation is obviously a multiple of 12.
Again, the first is natural based - months are roughly equivalent to one full lunar cycle, of which slightly more than 12 of those occur in a year.
Yeah, and I knew that before I hit submit.
I forgot ounces in a troy pound and angry men on a jury.
Days of Christmas
Sides on a dodecahedron
I read Superfreakonomics a couple of weeks ago, and it advanced just that argument.
Same thing with racehorses…all the racehorses that are born in a particular year are considered to have the same birthday (I believe it’s January 1), so a horse that’s born on January 1 of 2011 would be considered to be a full year younger than a horse born on December 31 of 2010, even though in reality it would only be a single day younger. So the older horse would be put in races with other horses of the same technical age, when it was really much, much younger than most of them. When horses race at 3 years old, being a full year younger than the rest of the fied would make a substantial difference in training and development.
Largest monosyllablic number
Last number before some bad luck
Apostles
One too many football players
So? An icosahedron has 20 sides! Isn’t there a term for any x-sided three-dimensional object? That doesn’t really prove anything …
It’s analogous to the concept of why we have ears: so our eyeglasses won’t fall off.
Yes!
Thanks, now I don’t have to keep racking my brain.