Alex Bellos
speaker
186 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2014
last heard Jun 2014
Alex Bellos’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
because it's the most indivisible.
It's the one that you can't get your head around.
You know, the seven times table is the most difficult times table.
And I think that the fact that some numbers are a bit more difficult arithmetically, it means they are kind of sticky.
They've got more personality.
They're spikier.
They're just a bit more interesting.
At the beginning of this, if someone would have said, Alex, can any number be more interesting than another number?
I'd have said, that's kind of silly.
That's sort of hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo numerology.
But
I think actually some numbers are more interesting than others and numbers do have a personality and that we should kind of embrace this fun.
three is culturally important because in the west anyway we live in a christian dominated culture and the three is the number of christianity is the holy trinity and isn't it interesting that the first two favorite numbers are both odd primes in western cultures odd numbers are much more mystical and spiritual one of the most mystical symbolic numbers in western society they are
Three, seven and 13.
They're the ones that always come up.
But the place that is most odd number centric is Japan.
So in Japan you have kaiseki, which is the formal traditional Japanese cuisine.
Always an odd number of dishes.
When you have ikebana, which is Japanese flower arranging, always asymmetric, so odd numbers of flowers in the decorating.
And the thing that I like the most is that when you celebrate children, the good health of children, you celebrate it at the 753 Festival, which is only for children who are 3, 5 and 7.
Showing 141–160 of 186 · page 8 of 10
← Previous
Next →