FUNBER 27

Here we are on the 27th day of the 12th month of 2024.  Numbers on the calendar tell us the day, the numbers on a clock tell us the time, zip code numbers tell where we live, highway numbers tell us where to drive, measurements in recipes tell us amounts of ingredients to add, page numbers mark the number of pages we've read, numbers on our doors tell what unit or apartment we live in, age numbers tell us what we can legally do, the numbers on an odometer tell us how many miles we've driven, and numbers on a yard stick identifies inches, feet, and fractions of both.

With me being mathematically challenged since day one, the world of numbers interests me.  It's that business of wanting to know what we find difficult to understand.  It's also that business of one side of the brain dominating the other.  For me, numbers take the back seat to words, any day of the week, month, year, decade or century.  Can we really imagine navigating our way in a world without numbers and words?

•  Funbers are elementary fun facts about numbers.  Today is the 27th day of the month, so let's see what part 27 plays in our aliveness.......  
• The numbers between 2 and 7, inclusive, add up to 27 (2 + 3 + 4 + 5 +6 + 7 = 27).
• 27 is the only positive whole number where the sum of its digits, when multiplied by 3, equals the number itself (2 + 7 = 9 x 3 = 27).
• The human hand has 27 bones.
• The moon revolves around the Earth once every 27 days (27.3 to be exact).
• Every 27 days the ocean's tidal patterns repeat because of the moon's position relative to the Earth. 
• The number of outs in a regulation baseball game for each team at all adult levels is 27.
• The ampersand symbol (&) originated in ancient Rome.  Up until the 1800s, the ampersand was considered the 27th letter of the English alphabet. 
• The Spanish alphabet and the Hebrew alphabet have 27 letters.
• The South Africa country code 27 allows us to call South Africa from another country.
• The number 27 is sometimes called the trinity of trinities as 3x3x3=27, 3x3=9, and 3x9=27.
• Planet Earth is made up of 72% saltwater and 1% freshwater, leaving 27% of the world as land.
• In a Rubik's Cube, there are 27 cubes.
• Mozart was born on January 27, 1756.  He produced 27 piano concertos and 27 concert arias.
• 
  The 27 Club refers to celebrities, mostly musicians, who died at age 27 (Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain to name a few).  
• The Oksapmin people of Papua, New Guinea count using 27 different body parts, starting with the thumb of one hand and progressing around the upper body to end with the little finger of the opposite hand...essentially using the body as a numerical counting tool.   This shows how different cultures develop unique ways to represent numbers based on their environment and their practices.