{"id":435,"date":"2015-10-22T22:27:47","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T22:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/?p=435"},"modified":"2015-10-22T22:27:47","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T22:27:47","slug":"i-work-on-the-14th-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/?p=435","title":{"rendered":"I work on the 14th floor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just started a new job, in the 14<sup>th<\/sup> floor of a building.\u00a0 As you know, buildings skip the number 13 when they number their floors because it\u2019s unlucky.\u00a0 But it just got me thinking.\u00a0 As a mathematician, you\u2019d think we\u2019d be above number superstition.\u00a0 But we actually get that much worse about it.<\/p>\n<p>Namely, in this case, is my floor still unlucky since it\u2019s really the 13<sup>th<\/sup> floor?<\/p>\n<p>But it gets that much worse.\u00a0 Here\u2019s some other neuroses that come out: is 13 only unlucky in the realm of integers?\u00a0 Or does it apply to real numbers too?<\/p>\n<p>If it applies to real numbers too, what\u2019s the range of real number that are unlucky?\u00a0 Anything that rounds to 13, meaning anything from 12.5 to 13.49?\u00a0 Is it precisely 13 on the dot that\u2019s unlucky?\u00a0 Is there an envelope where things get more unlucky the closer numbers get to 13?<\/p>\n<p>In the realm of integers, is it only the number 13 that\u2019s unlucky?\u00a0 Is 1300 unlucky?\u00a0 13,000?\u00a0 Are only powers of 10 unlucky, or any number with a factor of 13?<\/p>\n<p>What about a number with a 13 in it?\u00a0 Say, 2134\u2026 is that\u00a0 unlucky?\u00a0 Should we avoid following any 1 with a 3 in that case?<\/p>\n<p>But you see, there is method to this madness.\u00a0 Because it begs the question of the character of numbers.\u00a0 And that\u2019s ultimately why we got into mathematics in the first place.\u00a0 Even when talking about something as fickle as luck (or lack thereof), it\u2019s a great thought experiment.<\/p>\n<p>See, numbers have character.\u00a0 Indeed they are a reflection of existence itself, which breaks down into quanta. \u00a0And when you discuss numbers like this, you discuss existence.\u00a0 Indeed when you get into advanced mathematics you find out that the biggest figment of our imagination is the set of real numbers.\u00a0 They exist only to describe abstract things where we have no idea what\u2019s actually going on.<\/p>\n<p>Oh and for the record, the answers are: Yes, applies to reals, no, no, yes, no, yes, yes, only powers of 10 (or 101, 1001, etc in diminishing amounts), no, no.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just started a new job, in the 14th floor of a building.\u00a0 As you know, buildings skip the number 13 when they number their floors because it\u2019s unlucky.\u00a0 But it just got me thinking.\u00a0 As a mathematician, you\u2019d think we\u2019d be above number superstition.\u00a0 But we actually get that much worse about it. Namely, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbiggs.net\/ron\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}