17 Should Be Your Favorite Number

If prime numbers, pythagoreans, sudoku, and cicadas don't convince you, perhaps the 17th of Nisan and my other completely flawless arguments will.

What is your favorite number? It is your birth date? Anniversary?

The number 7 is the most popular across many cultures in the world, considered lucky or even holy in some religions. Here we should mention the 7 days of creation, 7 deadly sins, 7 heavens, and in the book of Revelation we find 7 churches, 7 lampstands, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and 7 bowls. That’s a strong case I admit it.

3 is also up there, since, ya know, the Trinity is a thing. And 3 has connotations of completeness. It’s a common number in fairy tales and we all have heard that the third time is, reportedly, the charm.

The number 8 is big in East Asian cultures where it sounds like the word for prosperity or wealth in Chinese, and the number looks like a vertical infinity symbol so that’s cool.

Maybe you were asked in kindergarten, looked down and saw five fingers, so you choose 5. Or looked into a mirror, and saw two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, and so you choose 2. Or maybe you’re a contrarian and so you chose 13 to stand out in your rebellious teen years.

Maybe its your favorite athlete? This Hoosier here has always been drawn to the numbers 18 and 31 and frowns whenever he sees the numbers 23 and 12 for very good reasons.

Aforementioned very good reasons

My wife doesn’t like odd numbered years as much as even ones (weird, eh?).

A character on The Big Bang Theory show loved the number 73 because it is “the 21st prime number, its mirror 37 is the 12th and its mirror 21 is the product of multiplying, hang on to your hats, 7 and 3!” now we’re getting nerdy! But we’re not done yet.

Because I have become convinced that we should all chose the number 17 as our favorite number. Why? Ok, here goes…