I have always been fascinated by numbers. There are two from my early childhood that stick out.
45
When I was in elementary school, I was a crossing guard. If you can believe it, they let elementary school kids stand at the crossing for the other kids attending school. I wanted the job because you got this ultra-cool sash that you wore.
I remember standing at the corner of Minuteman Causeway and Brevard with my cool crossing guard sash on, helping the other kids who basically ignored us 🤣. For whatever reason, I was thinking about the turn of the century, which was still many years off. I did the math and determined I would be 45! I was stunned – I guess it was the first time I actually wondered what my life would be like as an adult. I know for sure now that whatever happened, I would be 45 at the turn of the century.
I thought about this over and over until it actually occurred. At the time, I had gotten married for the second time to a woman with a six-year-old daughter. I didn’t see that one coming! 😳
69
This year, I turned 69. It is a unique number in a couple of ways.
It is known as a semi-prime because it is the product of two prime numbers, 3 and 23. Prime numbers have always fascinated me
If you multiply 69 by all the individual numbers preceding it (aka factorial), you get the value 1.711224524×1098. When electronic calculators came out, they had an upper limit of 10100 (also known as a googol). So, if your calculator had a factorial operation, you could get this number to appear. Any number higher than 69 would give you an error. I remember trying it out on my brand-spanking-new TI-56 programmable calculator when I was in engineering school.
As an image – well – I don’t need to tell you what that means. It is universally known!
♋️
I was in junior high school riding home from school one afternoon. The junior high school was further away than the old elementary school, and in the afternoon, you always had to fight the strong breezes coming from the ocean to get home. I used to dread it 😆.
Somebody earlier in the day told me the ‘naughty’ meaning of 69 😍. For whatever reason, I remember riding home that afternoon fighting the hurricane wind and thinking to myself:
Why would anybody want to do that?
Happy Birthday to Me 😎
