I don’t know about you, dear readers, but for me the number 13, which many consider fatal, is quite normal, even “lucky”. Probably every person has their own "good" and "bad" numbers. One friend of mine does not like the number 6, and another - 22. But now many people blame the "bad" number 23 for their misfortunes … Judge for yourself.
New trend
It seems that the first to notice the number 23 was the writer William Burroughs. Back in the mid-1960s, he wrote about his friend Captain Clark. The brave sailor operated a ferry from Morocco to Spain and back. One "fine" day, Clark bragged to Burroughs that in all his 23 years of service on this ferry, not a single incident had happened. But … on the same day the ferry sank with all the passengers and the captain himself.
In the evening Burroughs, shocked by the death of an acquaintance, heard on the radio something incredible to himself: a New York plane with tail number 23 crashed. Do you know the pilot's name? Clark. After that, the writer began to track incidents in which the number 23 was present. And the phrase "Captain Clarke welcomes you aboard" has since been used, it seems, by all writers who write in English.
As soon as this number is not magnified! A badge of failure, a hole in time, a gap in history … Why?
About disasters
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If you look at the calendar dates associated with the number 23 and tragic events, it becomes no time for jokes. On January 23, 1556, a terrible earthquake occurred in China, in the Shaanxi province. 830 thousand people died. It was the most destructive earthquake in history.
The largest air attack in terms of the number of victims was committed on June 23, 1985, when 329 people were killed. An onboard bomb destroyed an Air India aircraft. On November 23, 1962 in Le Bourget, near Paris, the Il-18D plane of the Hungarian airline "Malev" crashed while landing. 21 people died. On the same day in November, but in 1964, a Boeing B-707-331 of Trans World Airlines crashed while trying to stop takeoff. Of the 73 passengers, 51 people died.
And again on November 23rd. 1976 year. The plane of the Greek airline Olympic Airways was sent to another airport due to bad weather, and it crashed in a mountainous area. All 50 people on board were killed. It's terrifying to realize that on November 23, 1994 and 2007, Aeroflot's Airbus A310 aircraft near Mezhdurechensk and the Il-76 aircraft of Transaviaexport in Mogadishu crashed, respectively.
On April 23, 1967, the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz-1, piloted by Vladimir Komarov, was launched. On his return to Earth due to a spacecraft accident, the astronaut died. By the way, it is known that April 23 is the record day of the year for the number of UFO sightings.
On February 23, 1997, a fire broke out at the Mir orbital station. This station sank in the Pacific Ocean on March 23, 2001. During its operation, 23 thousand scientific experiments were performed on it.
In the compartment of the Kursk submarine, where the explosion took place, there were 23 people on the staff list. And it was on October 23 that the spectators of "Nord-Ost" in Moscow were captured by terrorists. And the date of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York by terrorists, 2001-11-09, when added - 11 + 9 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1 - becomes the number 23.
History with dates
Talking about the number 23 in the history of mankind, you can simply drown in the facts. For some reason, sad and even tragic ones prevail among them. Julius Caesar's assassins inflicted 23 stab wounds on the emperor. In 476, on August 23, the Western Roman Empire fell under the blows of the barbarians. The last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed. Rome was captured by the barbarian Odoacer.
And on May 23, 1592, the young Venetian aristocrat Mocenigo sent his first denunciation to the philosopher Giordano Bruno to the Inquisition. He was accused of heresy and burned on February 17, 1600 … The Russian Emperor Paul I also sadly ended his days: on the night of March 23-24, 1801, he was killed in the Mikhailovsky Castle. On the same day of the year, but in 1618, the Thirty Years' War began. Hitler became a member of the secret society in 1923; and SA Sturmführer Horst Wessel, whom the Nazis made a “hero” and “fighter”, was killed on 23 February. On August 23, 1939, the Soviet-German agreement on the division of Eastern Europe was signed (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). On March 23, 1953, 37 thousand peasants were arrested in Lithuania within 48 hours and deported to Siberia. They refused to join collective farms. The MGB called this operation "Spring" …
More about special operations. On September 23, 1944, the Nazis began to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Vilnius. On the same day, by order of Stalin, half a million Chechens and Ingush were expelled from their homeland and deported to remote places in the USSR. The Americans bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 (6 + 8 + 4 + 5 = 23). During nuclear tests on Bi-Keeney Atoll, the Americans detonated 23 atomic bombs. They love this figure, you see … By the way, on September 23, 2011 the American stock index NASDAQ at the very beginning of trading fell by two and a half percent - to a six-year low. Shares fell on negative news from major companies, including Dell and Microsoft.
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Signs …
Old and new signs and symbols are associated with the number 23. Thus, the number 23 is a kabbalistic symbol of the completion of existence. In telegraph code 23 means "line break". And on US coins, 23 characters are visible: letters and numbers. On September 15, 1989, in the Rostov region, mysterious signs and numbers were seen in the sky: two twos, between which there was a minus, two sevens, and three more sevens in between. A local ufologist named Leontiev deciphered them, using the number 23 as a key. As a result of complex operations, the decoder obtained a series of numbers, which he correlated with the verb and read the text: "Jesus Xs are truly the son of God." For this discovery, the congress of ufologists in Finland awarded Leontyev a prize of $ 250.
Religion is also here
A whole treatise could be written about the number 23 in various religions of the world. Here are just a few observations.
The most frequent numbers in the Revelation of John the Theologian are 4 (animals), 7 (sins, churches, etc.) and 12 (apostles). That is, 4 + 7 +12 = 23. According to the calculations of Bishop James Asher (1581-1656), the estimated date of the Creation of the world is October 23rd. The Old Believers' Paschal sect rejects the Easter of the Church and uses its own. They always celebrate Easter on the same day, March 23; and Christmas is eight days before January, 23 December. The Knights Templar had 23 grand masters. Jacques de Molay was the last, 23rd. On October 13 (13 + 10 = 23) he was arrested.
What about mathematics?
Well, there is plenty of room for researchers to roam in this area. For example, 2/3 = 0.666 … (approximately). It is the number of Satan. 23 is the first prime number consisting of the first two primes, the sum of which is also a prime number. And in Euclidean geometry there are 23 axioms. In a classical problem on number theory written in the mathematical treatise of the Chinese thinker and commander Sun Tzu, we read: “There are things, their number is unknown. If we consider them as triples, then the remainder is 2; if we count them as fives, then the remainder is 3; if we count them as sevens, then the remainder is 2. The question is, how many things? Answer: of course, 23.
Statistics know everything
Ilf and Petrov also wrote about this. Indeed … The average smoker smokes 23 cigarettes a day. A person who has lived to be 75 years old sleeps on average 23 years in his life. Usually a person makes 23 thousand breaths and exhalations per day. The average life span of an earthling is 63 years, which is approximately 23 thousand days. Scientists estimate that the average adult spends 23 months of his life on the Internet. Of the 1,200 suicides who have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco since its opening in 1937, 23 have survived.
The languages of the world have a different number of sounds. The number of consonants varies from 6 to 95, vowels - from 3 to 46. But the "average" language of the Earth uses 23 consonants and 9 vowels. One of the most common on Earth - the Latin alphabet - has 23 letters.
Art and life
In the arts, and especially cinema, the number 23 is everywhere. In the Beatles cartoon "Yellow Submarine", one of the Blue Sicklings is number 23. Laura Palmer was killed in Twin Peaks on February 23rd. In Die Hard 3, the train derails at station 23, in the film Lawrence of Arabia, the chief Audu Abu Tayi (actor Anthony Quinn) had 23 wounds on his body … Let's go further.
In 1998, the film "Number 23" was shot in Germany (directed by Hans-Christian Schmidt). The picture is based on the true story of a young hacker obsessed with the notorious number. And in the horror film Jeepers Creepers, an ancient scarecrow comes out to eat every 23rd spring for exactly 23 days.
On December 23, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear. It remains to add that the famous Hollywood sign over Los Angeles was erected in 1923. You can rest assured that in anatomy and zoology, physics and chemistry, sports and the field of incredible coincidences, the number 23 is prominently present everywhere. Check it out … And treat it with caution, but with respect. Good luck to you!
Petro DVORETSKI