# What is The Number 23? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2007, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576 "2007-02-17T00:57:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/21 "2007-02-17T12:00:26Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] 23 also correlates nicely with 17 [/QUOTE] You’ve said too much already! ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/22 "2007-02-17T13:23:25Z")
[QUOTE=devilsknew] In anticipation of Jim Carrey’s Oscar winning role in the movie [The Number 23](http://imdb.com/title/tt0481369/). What are the true characteristics, both numerologic and mathematic, of the number 23? Does it have a peculiar mathematical significance? [/QUOTE] Most numbers have peculiar mathematical significance. In fact, there’s a paradox about mathematically interesting and dull natural numbers, but I don’t think it really holds up well. 😃 23 is the first odd prime that is not ‘twin’ - IE, that does not have another prime number 2 away from it. (21 is 3 \* 7, and 25 is 5 \* 5). This is because the ‘twin prime’ setup is established by the multiples of 2 and 3 alone, so 25 is the first would-be twin prime that is knocked out, the first number that is divisible only by primes higher than 3. 23 is one of only two numbers that require as many as nine cubes to make it up, and since it is the lower one (the other is 239) it represents the solution to Waring’s problem in three dimensions. Also of note, 23 is a number that appears in human genetic biology (23 pairs of chromosomes our somatic cells, etcetera,) and Avogadro’s number in chemistry has an exponent factor of ten to the twenty-third. (Though I think that’s co-incidental with where we set the size of our grams in the metric system.) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/23 "2007-02-17T14:02:52Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] My previous post has caused me to wonder: Does anyone know if there is a kind of property of numbers which has to do with how far away they are from the nearest multiples of other numbers, and which said property is also interesting? I ask because I was wondering if there would be a pattern to the sizes of the “gaps” in the last rows of my illustrations above given a series of “attempted factorizations” of a number (so to speak) or if the sizes of the gap are in some way “random” in a way related to the “randomness” of the primes. There is probably some really easy answer to this question, but I haven’t thought it through. -FrL- [/QUOTE] If there were a pattern to the gaps between prime numbers, that would essentially amount to a formula to predict prime numbers and easily check for primality. Mathematicians have been searching for this for centuries, so I kind of doubt there is a really easy answer to this. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/24 "2007-02-17T14:37:10Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot] If there were a pattern to the gaps between prime numbers, that would essentially amount to a formula to predict prime numbers and easily check for primality. Mathematicians have been searching for this for centuries, so I kind of doubt there is a really easy answer to this. [/QUOTE] Depends on what you mean by a “pattern.” Depending on your definition, the [Prime Number Theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem) might qualify. [QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Given the enormous number of numbers in everyday life, and given any possible way of combining them, you can find huge numbers of meanings in any number you choose. [/QUOTE] I dunno. I arrived at this thread in Taxi #1729, which seems a rather dull number. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/25 "2007-02-17T14:46:14Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] Depends on what you mean by a “pattern.” Depending on your definition, the [Prime Number Theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem) might qualify. [/quote] Yeah, but what Frlyock was saying seemed kinda specific to me. > [@Thudlow Boink](#): > > I dunno. I arrived at this thread in Taxi #1729, which seems a rather dull number. 😉 Heh. For those who don’t know, G.H. Hardy (a justly famous British mathematician) took a taxi to meet his friend Ramanujan (a very [equally justly] famous Indian mathematician who died far too young), and remarked that his taxi number was very dull, 1729. Ramanujan instantly responded that it was very interesting, the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. (12[sup]3[/sup]=1728, +1[sup]3[/sup]=1, =1729; 10[sup]3[/sup]=1000, +9[sup]3[/sup]=729, =1729) I have heard that this statement was due not to Ramanujan’s skills at mental computation (which were prodigious), but his constant playing with numbers; in other words, he knew of this fact before Hardy visited him. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/26 "2007-02-17T15:29:50Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot] If there were a pattern to the gaps between prime numbers, that would essentially amount to a formula to predict prime numbers and easily check for primality. Mathematicians have been searching for this for centuries, so I kind of doubt there is a really easy answer to this. [/QUOTE] No, what you said _is_ the really easy answer to my question that I should have known before even asking. :smack: 😛 Thanks… -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/27 "2007-02-17T15:35:31Z")
At the wikipedia article on the Prime Number Theorem, it says there are proofs for the theorem using “only number theoretic means,” and, if I’m reading it correctly, implies there are proofs just using the peano axioms (?!). It says there are proofs in an even weaker system than peano, as well. Anyone know of any links online to any such proofs? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Madd\_Maxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Madd\_Maxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madd_Maxx)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/28 "2007-02-17T15:46:49Z")
It’s Michael Jordan’s jersey number, arguably the best basketball player ever. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/29 "2007-02-17T15:54:51Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] In the religion of Discordianism, it’s a holy number. I wouldn’t be surprised if the screenwriter knew this. It’s pretty much the first thing I thought when I heard of it. [/QUOTE] “23” is the most important of the conspiracy-related numbers (the others are 5 and 17) in the _Illuminatus!_ trilogy. I find it impossible to believe the screenwriter wasn’t aware of _Illuminatus!_ while writing a movie about 23. One of the central tenets of Discordianism is the Law of Fives, which states that all things happen in fives… if you are creative enough in finding ways to connect things to the number five. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/30 "2007-02-17T17:02:47Z")
You guys are all so young. You need to remember that Robert Anton Wilson was older than you. In 1954 Sigmund Freud published _Origins of Psychoanalysis: Letters to Wilhelm Fliess_, which made a big splash in its day and which Wilson couldn’t help but take note of. If you think that Freud’s theories were unscientific and wacko, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Fliess was a full-bore loony tunes, who admittedly turned Freud on to the power of jokes but also introduced him to Vital Periodicity. You can’t explain Vital Periodicity, but suffice it to say that he postulated that all human functions existed on a cycle of 28 and 23 days. You’d think that the 28-day cycle was for woman, since that’s what every single culture in history has said, but if so you don’t get the majesty of his notion. _Men_ had the 28-day-cycle; women the 23-day-cycle. If some New Ager starts babbling about biorhythms, you guessed it. Biorhythms are an outgrowth of Fleiss’ numerology. [http://www.experiencefestival.com/biorhythm](http://www.experiencefestival.com/biorhythm) > [@](#): > > Biorhythm: Alternative Health Dictionary on Biorhythm > > biorhythm: scientific method developed separately by Viennese psychology professor Dr. Herman Swoboda (1873-1963) and Berlin physician William Fliess (1859-1928). > > It is a means of predicting human conditions and susceptibilities. Its principle is that three fundamental biological cycles (biorhythms) are calculable from the date of one’s birth. > > Swoboda and Fliess posited two cycles: > > (1) a physical cycle of 23 days, predictive of one’s level of strength, coordination, immunity, and self-confidence; and > > (2) a sensitivity cycle of 28 days, predictive of emotional changes. > > In the 1920s, Austrian engineer Dr. Alfred Teltscher posited a third cycle, 33 days long and predictive of intellectual performance. > > According to proponents, vital energy is high on positive days and relatively low on negative days. George S. Thommen popularized biorhythm in Is This Your Day? (1973). Numerology is nutcult gold, possibly even a step down from creationism, because there’s literally nothing you can’t make happen if you can mine all the numbers and number correspondences in the world for your “proof.” And there are always people willing to be blinded by science. Numbers must _mean_ something, after all. They’re what scientists use. I don’t know why 23 is so good for it. Neither does Wilson, who was quoted as saying: > [@](#): > > 23 is a part of the cosmic code. It’s connected with so many synchronicities and weird coincidences that it must mean something, I just haven’t figured out yet what it means! He never will. Neither will anybody else. ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/31 "2007-02-17T20:28:56Z")
Of course 23 and 28 are good for finding numerological coincidences. It’s easy to see why: Solve the equation 23x + 28y = 1: x=11, y=-9 Then (23 x 11) - (28 x 9) = 1. And it follows that: (23 x 22) - (28 x 18) = 2 (23 x 33) - (28 x 27) = 3 (23 x 44) - (28 x 36) = 4 and so on. There’s no integer that can’t be expressed as the sum or difference of multiples of 23 and 28. No wonder Fliess (and Wilson) could find such “weird coincidences”. The only snag is that you can play this trick with \*any \* two starting numbers, providing they are mutually prime (have no common factor). So much for the occult “significance” of 23. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/32 "2007-02-17T21:31:09Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] You can’t explain Vital Periodicity, but suffice it to say that he postulated that all human functions existed on a cycle of 28 and 23 days. You’d think that the 28-day cycle was for woman, since that’s what every single culture in history has said, but if so you don’t get the majesty of his notion. _Men_ had the 28-day-cycle; women the 23-day-cycle. [/quote] I think this notion shows up in one of Wilson’s books, although he does have women at 28 and men at 23. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/33 "2007-02-17T23:08:09Z")
I’m not 100% lunatic, so I tend towards the belief that the 23/17 dealio is an apophenic or selection-bias phenomenon. That being said, today I did something I do once-a-year or so and bought two quick-pick lottery tickets for the 6/49 and Super 7 draws. A quick glance at the tickets to determine how long I’m obliged to carry them in my wallet before binning them revealed that I bought tickets for a draw on the 17th and one on the 23rd. I’m not 100% lunatic, but I’m still conditioned enough by High Weirdness that I felt a certain _frisson_ at the realization. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/34 "2007-02-17T23:19:32Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] Yes, sort of, in this instance. 🙂 I think the non-mathematical will think of a line intuitively as “not a rectangle” so I leave that out, in order to not complicate things. [/QUOTE] But it’s really part of the deal, isn’t it? I mean even prime numbers are divisible by 1. All numbers can make a rectangle only one square wide. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/35 "2007-02-17T23:22:44Z")
Oh, and I just realized that this thread has gone on this long and nobody has mentioned William S. Burroughs. Shame on y’all. …and it should be noted that a careful reading of Wilson’s body of work will lead the reader to the realization that the significance of “23” has no connection to objective reality. The point of the exercise is to get it through your skull that there are manifold projected beliefs out there that are equally chimerical – it’s just that you know so many people who act as though they’re rock-solid objective fact that you’d never notice. If you accept some of the basic premises of Discordianism, you will see things everywhere that reinforce them. Does this mean that the obviously absurd Discordian belief system is true? You might think so for a while, until you calm/come down a bit. Use it once, and then throw it away – and remember that Discordianism has parity with every other dogmatic belief system going. Step carefully! ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/36 "2007-02-17T23:26:08Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] But it’s really part of the deal, isn’t it? I mean even prime numbers are divisible by 1. All numbers can make a rectangle only one square wide. [/QUOTE] Yes, as I have already allowed, it is in fact the case that each number can be used to form a rectangle of width one. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/37 "2007-02-17T23:35:47Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] Yes, as I have already allowed, it is in fact the case that each number can be used to form a rectangle of width one. [/QUOTE] I do like your approach to the whole thing. Making a rectangle. Very simple and geometric (which is easier for me than, say, series type explanations). I wonder whether the primes accomodate other shapes, though. Perhaps even in three or more dimensions? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2007, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/38 "2007-02-17T23:35:48Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd] The point of the exercise is to get it through your skull that there are manifold projected beliefs out there that are equally chimerical – it’s just that you know so many people who act as though they’re rock-solid objective fact that you’d never notice. [/quote] That’s a very good explanation. Whether Wilson ever lost the thread and believed 23 was more ‘special’ than any other number, I couldn’t say. But he was involved with Discordianism almost from the beginning and the other guys who helped found it certainly knew that it was a deliberate exercise in pattern-finding and playing games with perceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/39 "2007-02-18T03:49:15Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I do like your approach to the whole thing. Making a rectangle. Very simple and geometric (which is easier for me than, say, series type explanations). I wonder whether the primes accomodate other shapes, though. Perhaps even in three or more dimensions? [/QUOTE] I don’t think so. Any regular shape is the result of regular components and therefore must be a composite number. This remains true in any number of dimensions, just as primes are prime in any number system, not just base 10. ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2007, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576/40 "2007-02-18T05:51:59Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] I don’t know why 23 is so good for it. Neither does Wilson, who was quoted as saying: > [@](#): > > 23 is a part of the cosmic code. It’s connected with so many synchronicities and weird coincidences that it must mean something, I just haven’t figured out yet what it means! He never will. Neither will anybody else. [/QUOTE] He was also a supreme joker, and often did so with a completely straight face. Go read through the appendices from _The Illuminatus Trilogy_ again where he talks about the Strong Form of the Law of Fives. That’s it in a nutshell. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-number-23/392576.md?page=3)