We're coming up to St. Patrick's Day and it reminds us that we have an orientation towards luck. It seems tome that mathematicians moved the term 'lucky number' into number theory. The wikipedia entry says that it is a 'natural number' in a set which is generated by a certain 'sieve'.
While the article describes a methodology that is usually seemingly obscure to us lay people, the origin isn't obscure. It is termed the Josephus problem.
"The problem is named after Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian living in the 1st century. According to Josephus' account of the siege of Yodfat, he and his 40 soldiers were trapped in a cave by Roman soldiers. They chose suicide over capture, and settled on a serial method of committing suicide by drawing lots. Josephus states that by luck or possibly by the hand of God, he and another man remained until the end and surrendered to the Romans rather than killing themselves."
I found this an astounding story. The wikipedia entry goes on to say that the details of the mechanism remained vague. Various mathematicians have suggested various methods - e.g. arranging the men in a circle and counting by threes to determine the order of elimination. You can find the solution HERE. The answer is that the problem is solved when every second person is killed - but there is quite a few calculations to get to that.
So a lucky number turns out to be Josephus and his companion's 'positions' in the circle.
Well, back to the social unconscious of us humans. Here are some of the inputs to what make us humans consider some numbers to be lucky numbers:
7 - seven days of the week, 7 colours in the rainbow, 7 seas, 7 continents
3 - on the count of three, third time's the charm, three's a crowd, three strikes and you're out...
4 - four seasons, 4 elements, 4 points on the compass, four-leafed clover
8 - 8 planets, 8 notes in a musical octave
See each number and its relevant luckiness summary HERE.
Today's a train day with a visit to the Sundance Layout. Here's a picture with a person in the setting so you can get a sense of size.
"I'm a great believer in luck. I've found that the harder I work, the more I have of it." Thomas Jefferson.
Lucky Seven's summary on Google seems a bit skewed: "In the creation story, God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. Scholars have found that the number seven often represents perfection or completeness in the Bible. In Judaism, there are seven heavens. ... Seven is also a prime number, which means it can only be divided by itself and one".
So I searched on for more about the story of luck and lucky. It is much more wide-spread than the creation story. There are hundreds of things considered lucky. Here is just the start of the lucky story:
If we keep track of all that is lucky we also keep track of who is lucky. Would you like to know about the top 10 luckiest people in the world?
This is number 10: When his car collided with a truck and he was crushed under the impact, everyone thought it was the end of the line for Australian Bill Morgan, even the doctors. Declared legally dead for more than 14 minutes, he was somehow revived and managed to survive after only 12 days in a coma, even after family removed life support.
But his luck doesn’t end there. To celebrate his survival, he bought a “Scratch It” card and won a car worth AUS$17,000 (now worth about AUS$25,000). When the local news station heard about him and all his good fortune, they were so impressed, they did a segment about him on the show. They asked him to reenact the scene by scratching off another card, only for him to win a whopping further $250,000 again during the live show.”
Number 1 is Frank Selak of Croatia. He has eluded death 7 times and won a million dollars in a lottery. The lucky 10 stories are HERE.
Perhaps yesterday's unpopular names was a story about luck of the draw - what our parents choose to bestow.
This is a definite example of luck - "success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions". We wish each other luck quite often - typically on an event.
But wait! Here's "The Luck Factor" by psychologist Richard Wiseman. It is his write up of an 8 year scientific study into what luck actually is. He identifies 4 (I think) traits of the personality which add up to making a "lucky" person. He investigated thing such as whether people are born with it, can catch it, can change it...
The traits are along the lines of: - relaxed attitude - trusting your intuition - optimism and perseverance - ability to turn bad luck into good luck
It demonstrates that if you consider yourself unlucky then all is not lost. By changing your attitude and/or behaviour then you can become "lucky".
The "Unlucky" are covered in this article by Cracked.com. The first story is of a couple who have experienced three terrorist attacks while on vacation - September 11, London transit strike, and a third in Mumbai.
The "Weird Luck" are covered in this article in ODDEE.com. I think this is the most intriguing and seems to go beyond luck.
The first is the curse of James Dean's car. It includes: the doctor who bought the engine and put it into his racing car, was killed shortly afterwards, and another racing driver was killed in his car, which had James Dean's driveshaft. When James Dean's Porsche was later repaired, the garage it was in was destroyed by fire. And more. What about the falling baby, saved twice by the same man? Three suicide attempts, all stopped by the same Monk. Mark Twain born on the day of Halley's Commet's appearance and died on its next appearance. Two brothers were killed by the same taxi drive, one year apart, riding the same moped, carrying the same passenger.
My picture shows Dezi checking out the Cobra Lily - these are the arums that smell like rotting flesh.
