KellanStec

Last Thursday, I was doing my daily tech news reading and came across an article about the next version of Microsoft Office, slated for a 2009 release. The release itself isn’t what I am concerned about.

The current version released, Office 2007, has release version number 12. Logically, the next version number would be 13, but Microsoft has elected to skip this version number and call the next release Office 14. Their rationale is, “well, 13 is unlucky, so we’re calling it Office 14″. This might not have bothered me so much if this was a quote from 1300 Europe. But, sadly, this was uttered little more than two months ago by the head of a department at one of the most successful firms in the computer world.

The number thirteen has struck fear in people of many different cultures and religions for millennia. What is our infatuation with this seemingly arbitrary value? Why is it “unlucky”? Surprisingly, the number was not always considered unlucky. The Egyptians were possibly the first culture to develop a superstition around the number thirteen, but it was considered good luck. According to Egyptian lore there are thirteen steps between life and death. Jewish tradition holds that thirteen is the age at which a boy becomes a man. Not surprising though, is that the foundation for holding that thirteen is an unlucky number is irrational.

Thirteen is the number of people in attendance at the last supper, so Christians usually make Judas out to be the thirteenth, thus, “unlucky”. Lucifer is also considered to be the thirteenth angel. This story possibly sprang from a similar Norse myth, in which twelve deities were seated around a table, only to have Loki (ironically the God of disorder) wreck the fun by raising the number to thirteen, in effect killing one of those already seated. Other explanations for the unlucky number thirteen is that it is one more than twelve, widely viewed to be a perfect number since it is easily divisible. It sounds silly, but just think of how many times that wretched number has intruded on our tidy arrangements of twos, threes, fours, and sixes! It is also relevant to note that many tall buildings are built without a thirteenth floor. One might inquire how the floor labeled as the fourteenth doesn’t end up becoming the thirteenth anyway. Label them all you want, it doesn’t change what floor it really is. Many buildings do not contain room number thirteen either, but a quick walk down the hall showed me that the architects (or at least the guy that paints numbers on room doors) were not so superstitions to leave out room number 313.

Actually, I may have gotten a little sidetracked there for a bit. I am not particularly concerned with the history of the number thirteen either. What I want to know is why we are still practicing such a superstition today. Why is “unlucky thirteen” any more compelling than “unlucky nineteen”? We certainly have some “evidence” that shows the number nineteen is unlucky. There were nineteen 9/11/01 hijackers. I also just noticed some math related to 9/11: 9 + 11 -01 = 19! The number nineteen surely appears to have some significance in the holy Koran. In an editorial afterword in one of Thomas Wolfe’s books, Edward C. Aswell remarks that Wolfe’s second book, was to have been titled K19. When Wolfe died, Aswell watched the train carrying his coffin go by: Train K19. This sounds incredibly stupid, but it goes to show that if you want to, you can connect dots and see things that aren’t really there.

Now, let’s put the shoe on the other foot and examine the antithesis of the common perception of the number thirteen: the number thirteen is a lucky, or at best neutral, number. Thirteen is the atomic number of aluminum. Why aren’t soda cans spontaneously rupturing and cutting our skin with that cursed metal number thirteen? The olive branch on the back of a U.S. one-dollar bill has 13 leaves. Do people who carry one dollar bills in their pocket get struck by vehicles more often while crossing the street? The Chinese abacus consists of 13 columns of beads. Where are the records of scores of Chinese mathematicians dying as a result of using the wrong number of columns on their counting device?

My point is, we currently live in a scientific, reasonable society for the most part. Why don’t we get rid of these silly superstitions? The next Friday the 13th will be in April. I plan on living it as if it were a normal day. Who’s with me?

Filed under: Culture by kellanstec