Favored Numbers

For many of us, there are lucky numbers.

Unlucky numbers.

A favorite.

​Or a feeling that a specific number is simply more interesting than another.  

An indulgent example: I like the number 9. I picture it as both a square and a triangle, being the square of 3.   When you multiply 9 by any number, the resulting sum reduces down to 9.

For instance, 9x9=81, and 8+1=9. It goes along unendingly: 9x55=495; 4+9+5=18 and 1+8=9.

Allakazam! 

But 11 is also pretty cool. It's a prime number (divisible only by itself and 1). But it's simply two ones standing together (it should be two, right? But it's not), which gives me the exact internal frisson of confusion that I feel while arriving at the airport and heading toward "Departures."

Anyway, cognitive dissonance aside, eleven elevens make 121, which seems mystical. Twenty-two of them is 242, while thirty-three of them is 363. Et cetera. 
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The possibility of deep nerdishness exists around any topic.

All this by way of introduction, really, to a couple of my favorite enthusiasts who dive into human perception of numbers (is 2 a masculine number or a feminine one?). Give yourself an hour of cool information and entertainment with Jad and Robert on this link to the...​Radiolab podcast.