Krazy Krystal's Laboratory

070307

I really like today's date. There's just something about it's symmetry that appeals to me. I commented on this today, when I was attending a lecture on trypanosomiasis, and then spent the next ten minutes ignoring the obligatory introductory parasite lifecycle slides whilst scribbling down dates on a piece of paper that I am looking forward to.

070707 - Slightly obvious but still fun
030507 - Prime numbers all in a row
030407 - All the numers add up (2+5 =7)
020507 - See above

and then looking beyond this year... there's coolness in binary to be had!! I mean how ace is "111111" going to be. And then getting all palindromic, what about "011110" and "101101" ?!?!!

It's enough to make me want to plan specific experiments that fall on those key dates, just so i've got a great excuse to write cool dates on all my important samples.

And then it got me thinking about numbers. I wouldn't normally call myself a numbers person, I almost failed 1st year maths, (insert excuse here) but I do seem to get a sense of delight from combinations of digits that make sense. For example, in the modern world there are lots of four digit numbers to be remembered - PIN codes for your bank account, security codes, photocopier codes, etc, the list goes on, but i quite like it when i can make a little mathematical equations out of things. For example.. if my building security code was "7265" (and it's NOT) then I would tell myself "seven minus two isn't six it's five" so i'd remember. Of course I wouldn't be happy with a code that had so many odd numbers..

Which brings me to my next topic.. Do you like odd numbers or even numbers best? Personally I get a bit distressed by things like prime numbers. You can't do anything with them. I mean "19". What am i meant to do with that? Nothing. It's so obtuse. A monolith. That's why I love 24, it's a great number. You can divide it by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12... it's so versatile! Plenty of scope for factorisation there. But 17? It's just... difficult. So overall I'd say that i relate well to even numbers far more than odd ones. My favourite number is probably 16, I mean it's 2x2x2x2, and that in itself is just so ace. Though I do wonder how much one's birthdate influences these things. I was born on the 6th, so maybe I have an internal bias. And my theory holds true for a sample space of at least n = 2, cause the most recent person surveyed preferred odd numbers and was born on the 5th.

Or maybe it's the address you had when growing up. I lived at number "108" and I thought that was just way cool. You can divide that by a lot of things..

Speaking of dates and numbers, I'm departing the shores of mother england on 020407 and arriving in sunny australia on 040407 (oh no! I'm going to completely miss 030407 !!!). I'll be hanging around, dashing from state to federal to state capital cities, till 240407 till I depart and arrive back in the land of spring on 240407 .

So, in the words of go team! "2, 4, 6, 8, 10..... 2, 4, 6, 8, 10"

posted by Dr Krystal @ 11:16 pm