This is my collection of writings for the three hundred and sixty five day writing challenge - where one has to write something daily, every day, for one whole year, based on the prompts provided - as part of an exercise to improve creative writing...
"Numbers are absolute, it is people who are manipulative."
I had written this line for one of my stories and now when I have to write about numbers, I could not help show off, which is which it forms the epigraph, even if it makes little sense.
Numbers that have special meaning for me, let me think. I will skip the ones which are common and clichéd, birth dates, vehicle numbers etc. There are so many numbers which fascinate me and I shall focus on one of them.
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This is the significant and fascinating number; one that has connotations in almost all cultures. It is used to represent the Trinity of Brahma(Creator), Vishnu(Preserver), Maheshwara (Destroyer) in Hinduism as well as the Trisakthi (Lakshmi, Parvati and Saraswati - representing wealth, strength and knowledge); The Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Christianity, the number three is important in Islam; in Buddhism the spirit of three is the Triratna (three jewls) represented by the Buddha(teacher), the Dharma (teachings) and the Sangha(community). I am not aware of other religions, but a search of the net reveals that number three is quite important and there are quite a few symbolisms attached to this number.
In Japanese folklore there are three monkeys which propound the philosophy all human kind should follow, "See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil." In India, the Triveni Sangam, the confluence of three rivers, Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Sarswati rivers, is sacred place.
Symbolically, the number three is representative of the divine, single number that encompasses completeness and denotes perfection.
Time - Past Present Future
Cycle - Birth Life Death
Work - Beginning, Middle, Ending
Colours - Red Blue Green (These are the primary colours which can be mixed to obtain all the other colours)
In Mathematics, this number is:
· he number of non-collinear points needed to determine a plane and a circle.
· the first odd prime number and the second smallest prime.
· the first Fermat prime (22n + 1).
· the first Mersenne prime (2n − 1).
· the second Sophie Germain prime.
· the second Mersenne prime exponent.
· the second factorial prime (2! + 1).
· the second Lucas prime.
· the second triangular number. It is the only prime triangular number.
· the fourth Fibonacci number.
· the smallest number of sides that a simple (non-self-intersecting) polygon can have.
· the only number for which n, n+10 and n+20 are prime.
· Three is the only prime which is one less than a perfect square.
· There are only three distinct 4×4 panmagic squares.
· According to Pythagoras and the Pythagorean school, the number 3, which they called triad, is the noblest of all digits, as it is the only number to equal the sum of all the terms below it, and the only number whose sum with those below equals the product of them and itself.[2]
· The trisection of the angle was one of the three famous problems of antiquity.
· Gauss proved that every integer is the sum of at most 3 triangular numbers.
~Source: Wikipedia~
Literature to has its fair share of trios, The Three Musketeers (Athos, Parthos and Aramis with their slogan "One for all and all for One); Rand, Mat and Perrin from the Wheel of Time Series, or Harry, Ron and Hermoine from the Harry Potter series; Aragon, Legos and Gimli from the Lord of The Rings; the list is endless.
I am sure that in real life too a trio of friends is far more fun and stable than only a pair.
Most book series are a trilogy. In fact there is a principle, 'The Rule of Three' which suggests that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers in execution of the story and engaging the reader. The reader or audience of this form of text is also thereby more likely to remember the information conveyed.
The number 3 is indeed fascinating, for dreamers and mathematicians, for philosophers and priests. It is also a number made famous with this quote, "Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time." - Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist).
