Slothrop Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 From the New Zealand News. "Quarter-power" rules govern many, if not all, aspects of life on the planet -- according to the new research. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Icky Twerp Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 From the New Zealand News. "Quarter-power" rules govern many, if not all, aspects of life on the planet -- according to the new research. Wasn't that the answer Rodney Dangerfield came up with in Back to School? So THIS is the 4th dimension...I sort of missed what it was, other than some sort of fudge-factor... Do elephants live twice as long as us, or just twice as long as we used to live? How long do whales live? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted July 22, 2003 Report Share Posted July 22, 2003 "Four is the magic number of life," says Dr Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, a keynote speaker at the NZ Institute of Physics annual conference last week. Chinese say that four is the number of death (it apparently rhymes with it in Mandarin). Either the Chinese or the Kiwis are badly mistaken, but damned if I know which. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3Martinis Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 The gleaming residential towers where I live have no 4th floor...or 14th ...or 24th etc. (Nor any 13th floor)... from what I understand it's due to many Asian buyers and lousy sales when the floors are numbered such. Poor schnooks who bought on the 15th actually live on 13th. Doesn't have much to do with anything ..... carry on ........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThorAss Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 Since there is no 4th, 13th or 14th floors then it's those on the 16th floor who are actually on the 13th. And I notice you're not called 4Martoonies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FauxCaster Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 And all this time we thought it was fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio (seems it was well documented as well, from sunflowers to rabbits) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3Martinis Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 Since there is no 4th, 13th or 14th floors then it's those on the 16th floor who are actually on the 13th. And I notice you're not called 4Martoonies LOL ..... right you are ! No wonder I can never balance my checkbook I know shiite !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The brown one Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 Is it not true that the Chinese "lucky numbers" 8 and 0 are regarded as lucky because they are rounded and closed? All very silly really'cos if when numbers were "invented" somebody wrote 4 as an 8 then 4 would have been lucky--if ya get my drift! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted July 23, 2003 Report Share Posted July 23, 2003 Is it not true that the Chinese "lucky numbers" 8 and 0 are regardedas lucky because they are rounded and closed? All very silly really'cos if when numbers were "invented" somebody wrote 4 as an 8 then 4 would have been lucky--if ya get my drift! I was told in Taiwan that the number eight (as pronounced, "bah") rhymes with the word for wealth. So the license plate 888-8888 ("bah bah bah bah bah bah bah") was auctioned off at a fantastic price. Remember that the character '8' is an Arabic number. Chinese has its own characters for numbers. The one for four is closed (in a box shape), but eight is two open strokes. http://www.mandarintools.com/numbers.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 26, 2003 Report Share Posted July 26, 2003 We call them Arabic numbers, but that is something like Panama hats. I Arabic, they are refered to as "Indian numbers", a closer attribution. Assyrians contend that what is considered 'Arab knowledge' in the West is what the Arabs took from them. Ironically, Arab itself means 'westerner', which in that region was something like 'hick'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThorAss Posted July 26, 2003 Report Share Posted July 26, 2003 Slightly off topic but along the tangent of the last post. Remember the children's game some know as Chinese Whispers and others as Arabian Telegraph where a message is passed quietly from person to person then compared at the end to the original. When I was in Yemen some time ago, I happened to explain this to one of my hosts. He said that yes he was familiar with the game. I asked him what the game was called there. He smiled broadly and said "Egyptian Telegraph." Did you know that when Faulty Towers was dubbed into Spanish, Manuel (from Barthelona) was protrayed as being Italian. :grin: Since I've gone off the beam I might as well keep going. Please do not be offended by anything I'm about to write. I love everybody and this is just a little harmless fun so don't get all PC on me. It's interesting that something in the English psyche has led them to adopt a system of nicknaming residents of their fellow European countries with words that rhyme with "ogs." Here is a list with a few personal additions. The French - Frogs The Italians - Wogs (or for anyone from the Indian subcontinent or with dark skin) The Dutch - Clogs (this can be applied to the Welsh also) The Irish - Bogs (as in bog-jumper) Themselves - Blogs (as in Joe Blogs like John Doe) The Belgians - Flogs (from Flemish or because they're part French part Dutch?) The Icelanders - Slogs The Norwegians - Nogs The Swedish - Skogs The Danish - Dogs (from Great Dane?) The Finnish - Fogs Their own children - Sprogs (also good for Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, etc) The Spanish - Spogs The Swiss - Swogs The Austrians - Augs The Germans - Bosch The Portugese - Pogs The Poles - Plogs The Greeks - Grogs This system could be extended to the entirew world and would make villifying so much easier. Canadians would become Cogs or Canogs. Australians would become Augz. etc. Think I'll go take my medication now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alceringa Posted July 26, 2003 Report Share Posted July 26, 2003 In his own era (circa 1170 to 1250), Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci was an important force in the study of mathematics and its application to practical problems of commerce. Although born in Italy, he spent much of his youth in North Africa and received quite a liberal Arab education. Returning to Italy in 1200, he published his first major mathematical text Liber abaci in 1202. Few original copies of that and Fibonacci's later works exist, since in those pre-Guttenberg days, all texts were hand written. In any case, Fibonacci's 800 year old work contains most of the information necessary to put the discussion in this thread so far into more illuminating perspective. (Except of course George's odd fascination with "og"-ism's. ) It was Liber abaci that introduced the Hindu-Arabic numerals and decimal system into to Europe, including the "0" as a number and as an intellectual concept. The Hindu-Arabic system became all the rage, and Fibonacci's book was widely copied and distributed. The Hindu-Arabic system was rapidly adopted by merchants for the simple reason that it made calculations easier. This was especially useful with currency and weights and measures conversions for all the different standards in use among the Mediterranean countries and city-states. Later, the Roman Catholic Church adopted the scheme despite its questionable infidel inspired origins during the age of the Crusades. Also, in Liber abaci Fibonacci proposed and solved the following problem- A certain man put a pair of rabbits in a place surrounded on all sides by a wall. How many pairs of rabbits can be produced from that pair in a year if it is supposed that every month each pair begets a new pair which from the second month on becomes productive? The resulting sequence is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ... (Fibonacci omitted the first term, 0, in Liber abaci), the reciprocals of which, when expressed as percentages, are the numbers commonly called the "Fibbin Nachos" by the good Doc Stool, et al. On the matter of 4's and squares, it not unlikely that Dr Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, simply read another of Fibonacci's works, Liber quadratorum written in 1225, for inspiration. That book is perhaps Fibonacci's most impressive, if not his most famous. It was in this work that mathematical historians believe that he first surpassed the work of contemporary Arab algebraists such as Omar Kayyam. Among other investigations, Fibonacci explores number theory with emphasis on squares and related topics such as Pythagorean triples. Fibonacci offers proof of several advanced theorems including these- 1)There is no x, y such that x^2 + y^2 and x^2 - y^2 are both squares. 2) x^4 - y^4 cannot be a square. Fibonacci's number sequence has achieved some fame and his legacy in introducing Hindu-Arabic notation to Europe is important. However, much of the remainder of his work has remained obscure throughout history. From time to time, other mathematicians have produced work, thinking it was originally, when it was actually first done by Fibonacci. Perhaps that type of thing is at play in the case of the "discovery" of the mystical properties of the number 4 discussed in the story linked above. Leonardo de Pisa-More Information Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pee Brain Posted July 26, 2003 Report Share Posted July 26, 2003 LOL ..... right you are ! No wonder I can never balance my checkbook I know shiite !! hey 3M, maybe thats why they cut you such a deal on your 16th florr units Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fumets Posted July 30, 2003 Report Share Posted July 30, 2003 In the new Zealand referenced article it was hard to get a feel for what were the actual mathmatics they were discussing since they were described very generally. It seemed mostly that they were discussing the numeral 4's involvement in exponential relationships. There are many of these that are interesting such as: Volume/surface area ratios affecting dirigible designs - double the size but quadruple the lifting capacity. Diameter/weight ratios affecting rope strain - double the load weight and you must quadruple the diameter of the lifting rope. Participant/security ratios affecting secrecy - double the numbers of those in the know and reduce the likelihood of the secret being kept by four times? Probably more. I used to work for a Chinese employer who had all his phone numbers ending in 89 ( 8 = rich, 9 = forever or always). Good license plate numbers are hard to get in Asia. The foreigners always get stuck with the license plates whose ending numbers mean ill fortune, such as 51 (5 = no or not, 1 = start or begin) or 94 (9= always, 4 = dead). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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