The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1901-01-12
THREE ODD NUMBERS.
PecuIiariiies That Hedge About
Three, Seven aud Nine.

bers. This Is the third timew exclaims
Falstaff, on the occasion of n crisis in his
relations with one OF the merry wives
Of Windsor. II hope good luck lies in
odd numbers; they say there's divinity
in odd numbers. either in nativity.
chance or DEATH" And II Is scarcely
necessary to say that the belief is much
older than Sir John Falstaff. Three.
seven and nine appear TO have been the
favorite numbers all the world over. The
ancents had three fates, three furies and
three graces; Neptune's trident had three
prongs, Jupiter's thunderbolt three forks,
and Cerberus three heads. We have
three estates of the realm, a man who
accepts a bill has three days grace, and
three persons congregated together may
make a riot. Shakespeare was well aware
that he must have neither more nor less
than three witches In Macbeth" and
that the brindled cat must NEW thrice.
and our popular folklore insists upon three
merry men, three blind mice and three
wise men of Gotham. Three meals
day is the usual scale OF feeding.
OF more mystical character than
/ three is the figure seven, or, at any rate
IL has a larger number of religious appli-
cations. Noah had seven days warning
of the coming OF the food, and when 1t
came he took fowls by sevens and clean
beasts by sevens into the ark; the ark
touched on Mount Ararat In the seventh
month, and after seven days dove was
sent out, followed seven days afterward
by another. In Pharaoh's dream there
were seven fat and seven lean kline,
which Joseph interpreted to mean seven
years OF plenty and seven years OF fam
inc. At the destruction of Jericho sew
en- priests bore seven trumpets seven
days, and on the seventh day they walked
round the city seven times. after which
the walls fell. In the apocalypse almost
everything is seven, except the number of
the beasts. There are seven churches, sew
en- golden candlesticks, seven lamps be-
fore seven spirits, the book with seven
seals, the lamb with seven horns and sew
en- eyes, seven angels with seven seals,
seven kings, seven thunders, seven thou
sand slain, the dragon with steven heads
and seven crowns. seven angels bring
seven plaques, and there are seven walls
of wrath
In merely secular matters seven occurs
frequently enough. We have seven won
ders of the world, seven champions Of
Christendom, seven sleepers, seven wise
men, seven planets, seven deadly sins,
seven ages of man, and our ordinary
leases are made for seven or a multiple
of seven years.
But however mystically significant
three and seven may be- they cannot lay
claim to amy such peculiarities as are the
property Of the figure nine. That the
ancients had nine muses., nine rivers in the
internal regions, hydra v&th nine heads
and nine gods fer Lars Porsena to swear
by, or that ID modern times a cat has
nine lives, that it takes nine tailors TO
make a man, or that possession is nine
points Of the law, are facts that pale into
insigniicance after one has once sat
down with pencil and paper to investigate
some OF the special peculiarities of the
figure nine. For instance, IL you null
tiply nine by any other number you will
find that the figures composing the prod
uct when added together will always
amount to nine. Thus:
ok * IS and l + s=o.
Ok - 81 and 2 r TO.
ox4 SO and r 8 -.
and so on to any extent. On arriving at
IL times Q we find what appears TO be an
exception, for the digits of 90 equal IS.
But it will be observed that IS is a null
tiple of and, moreover, that the figures
composing il add up to 0. Another pc
culiarity of this figure is discovered by
taking any number Of two figures of
which the first figure is of greater value
than the second, reversing these figures
and then subtracting the number thus OBJ
tanned from the original number. What
ever figures we may take, the result viii
always be 8 or some multiple Of 8. The
smallest possible number of two figures
of which the first figure is larger than
the second is 81. Reverse the figures,
and we get II. Subtract II from 81, and
the remainder is 8. The largest similar
number is 9S. Reverse these, and we get
80. Subtract so from 9S, and again the
remainder is found to be 0.
Or let us take case in which o COM
bines with the mystic Z. The number 60 is
not divisibe by o. But IL we add to it,
either in front, when it makes 765, or in
the middle. when it makes G75. or at the
end, when it makes 657, we shall find
that every one of these numbers is diyis-
ible by o. 1t is not every number which
can thus be dealt with. and the reader
may find an evenings entertainment in
trying TO puzzle out the reason why. An
example of a higher number may be Civ
en- by way of little assistance: 500, 1913
Is not dlVlslble by y, but III the mystic
z be added to it. either In front, where it
raises the amount by 100000, or in
any other position, each one of the eight
various amounts which may thus be OBJ
tanned becomes divisible by o.
The fact can be verified by any child
who has mastered the first four rules of
arithmetic, but the explanation of it is
another matter. To Senior Wranglers or
even to Junior Optimes there may be
nothing very mysterious about all this.
And it may be that il any Of us would
only put himself through course of the
higher algebra, digest the integral calcu-
lus and master a few amusing treatises
on the theory OF differences all that now
seems so perplexing in the matter would
become as plain as the multiplication ta-
bls.--London Globe.