The 23 enigma

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

The 23 Enigma is a belief that the number 23 is of particular or unusual significance, especially in relation to disasters.

Unusual circumstances being linked to 23 are mentioned by William S. Burroughs. He tells the story of meeting a ferry captain named Clark who claimed to have sailed the same route without an accident for 23 years. That very day, however, the ferry sank. Later that day, Burroughs writes, he was thinking about Clark's ferry accident when he heard that a Flight 23 on a New York-Miami route had crashed. According to Burroughs, the pilot's name for the flight had also been Clark. Burroughs began collecting incidences of the number 23 in a scrapbook and referred to them in his writings.

The 23 Enigma can also be traced to Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's novels The Illuminatus Trilogy (there called the "23/17 phenomenon"), Wilson's Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati (there called "The Law of 23s"), as well as to the Principia Discordia. In these works, 23 is considered to be alternately lucky, sacred to the goddess Eris, or just plain weird. The Principia quotes "The Law of Fives" in explaining this, as 2+3=5. The electronica group The KLF, who referenced The Illuminatus Trilogy extensively, also contrived the appearance of the number 23 throughout their work, in promotional material and in the cataloguing of their releases.

The link to disasters also corresponds with hexagram 23 of the "I Ching", P'o, translated as "Splitting Apart." The hexagram pictures a time in which inferior people surreptitiously overthrow the superior.

Though certain numbers have long been linked to unusual coincidences (13 and 17 also being favorites), the 23 Enigma could be just an example of apophenia. There is also the fact that 23, being a fairly low number, occurs often in the media, current events, and daily life. Skeptics point out that it appears probably no more often in conjunction with catastrophe or coincidence than 22 or 24, while believers often enjoy hunting for ways in which 23 is "revealed."

Contents 1 A 23 enigma list 1.1 True 1.1.1 Births and deaths 1.1.2 Sports uniform numbers 1.1.3 Film references 1.1.4 Television references 1.1.5 Video game references 1.1.6 Musical references 1.1.7 Literary references 1.2 True with stretched applicability 1.3 Dubious 1.4 False 2 23 pattern 3 Skull and Bones 322 4 See also 5 Related Links

A 23 enigma list

This is a list of unusual happenings or circumstances commonly brought up as instances of the 23 enigma. It should be pointed out that some entries on this list are of dubious accuracy or verification. Others are the result of stretched applicability, such as when decimals or remainders are ignored, or when modern calendars are used to synch up to ancient ones.

True

• 2 + 3 = 5, which is (3 x 2) - (3 - 2).
• 3³ - 2² = 23
• December 23, 2012 is the date the Mayan calendar ends, predicting an apocalyptic event. The Mayan calendar's "Long Count" does indeed end on either the 21st or 23 December 2012, depending on calculation (see Maya calendar#End of the world?).
• Both the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian calendars begin on 23 July. Both calendars were apparently calculated from the date of the heliacal rising of Sirius, which does occur at that latitude around that time of year.
• W, the 23rd letter of the Latin alphabet has 2 points down, 3 points up.
• Vanadium, the 23rd element is represented by the symbol V. In Roman numerals, V = 5 = 2 + 3.
• 23 is the smallest number of integer-sided boxes that tile a box so that no two boxes share a common length.[1]
• Psalms, the longest book of the Bible, is the 23rd book of the Old Testament, and the famous "Divine Shepherd" psalm is Psalm 23.
• The first Morse Code transmission - "What hath God wrought?" - was from the Bible passage Numbers 23:23.
• It is believed that Adam and Eve had 23 daughters.
• It is believed that the verses of the Qur'an were revealed over a period of 23 years.
• The Knights Templar had 23 Grand Masters, the last being Jacques de Molay.
• Alexander the Great was aged 23 when he cut the Gordian Knot.
• Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times when he was assassinated.
• John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and his supposed assassin -- Lee Harvey Oswald -- was assassinated on November 24, 1963, the 23rd being in between.
• Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President of the United States, served between Grover Cleveland's two non-consecutive terms.
• "Franklin Delano Roosevelt" contains 23 letters.
• The sum of the digits of the United States Bicentennial year (1976) equals 23: 1 + 9 + 7 + 6 = 23
• Twenty-two organizations merged to create the "Department of Homeland Security". This makes the DHS the twenty-third.
• On a normal modern Latin alphabet, QWERTY keyboard, the 23rd letter W is right below and between 2 and 3.
• Charles Darwin wrote his book on the theory of Evolution in 1859: 1 + 8 + 5 + 9 = 23
• Hurricane Katrina, considered to be the costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States, was declared an official hurricane by the National Hurricane Center on August 23 2005. August is the 8th month, and 8 = 2³.
• Each parent contributes 23 chromosomes to the DNA of a child.
• In humans the 23rd chromosome determines biological sex. True by convention; the numbering of chromosomes is actually arbitrary.
• The Salt March, initiated by Mohandas Gandhi to protest the Salt tax, lasted 23 days.
• Volkswagen's VW logo contains the Roman numeral V (2 + 3 = 5) and the 23rd letter W. Volkswagen is based in Wolfsburg which starts with the 23rd letter.
• On Microsoft Windows computers, a line break is stored as ASCII code 13, then ASCII code 10. On Apple Macintosh computers running Mac OS 9 or earlier, a line break is stored as ASCII code 13. On Linux and Unix systems, a line break is stored as ASCII code 10. Supposedly, in telegraphy a line break is or was transmitted as a 23, as referred to in the article 23.

Births and deaths

See January 23, February 23, March 23, April 23, May 23, June 23, July 23, August 23, September 23, October 23, November 23, December 23, and 23 (year) for further births and deaths.

• Caesar Augustus was born on September 23 63 BC.
• John D. Rockefeller died on May 23 1937.
• Johnny Carson died on January 23 2005.
• Salvador Dalí, famous surrealist painter, died January 23 1989.
• Actor River Phoenix, was born on August 23 1970. He died at the age of 23, on Halloween 1993.
• Hellboy, popular comic book hero, was summoned to Earth on December 23 1944.
• Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed May 23 1934

Sports uniform numbers

• Michael Jordan's uniform number was 23 when he played for the Chicago Bulls.
• David Beckham wears the number 23 shirt for Real Madrid.
• Shane Warne wears the number 23 shirt when playing cricket for Australia and Victoria.
• Sporting Stars sponsored By Nike, Inc. are required to wear 23. not true
• Don Mattingly, 6-time Gold Glove Award first baseman for the New York Yankees' uniform number was 23.
• Richard Nixon's football jersey number at Whittier College was 23.
• Hall Of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg wore the number 23 for the Chicago Cubs.
• Ron Artest in his time with the Indiana Pacers wore 23 up to 2004-2005 season.
• LeBron James wears the number 23 for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
• Jamie Carragher wears the number 23 shirt for Liverpool FC.

Film references

In addition to the films 23 and The Number 23, references or usage of the number in movies include:

• Serendipity: Sarah & Jonathan 'randomly' select floor 23 in the Waldorf Astoria elevators.
• Kate & Leopold: Kate has 23 minutes to jump into a time vortex before it closes.
• The Matrix Reloaded: in the opening code sequence, the final, most prominent number is 23, reversed as if looking from inside a mirror. The film was also released 5/2003.
• The Fifth Element: A reference to five (5 = 2 + 3), and the story is set in the year 2263, the 23rd century
• In Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, when the raccoon attacks Harold and they almost crash into some other car and then find out it's Goldstein and that other guy, Goldstein has a shirt with a 23 on it.
• In Antwone Fisher, Antwone finds his mother at apartment number 23.
• In Talk to Her by Pedro Almodovar, one of the women in a coma, Alicia, is shown in flashbacks to live in a building with street number 23.

Television references

• 23 is one of "the numbers" on ABC's television show Lost. The series is 4 8 15 16 23 42. 8 + 15 = 23. 42 - 23 + 4 = 23. 42 + 4 = 46, which is double 23. However, these numbers form a spanning set of integers, and as such, any number can be obtained with some combination of these numbers.
• In episode 4 of Life On Mars (BBC, 2006), Detective Sam Tyler (who finds himself transported back in time to 1973), goes to the house where he lived as a child, which is number 23.
• Purple 23 is the location where Kramer sets the air conditioner in the parking garage episode of Seinfeld.
• The numbers 23, 6 and 801 reoccur thoughout the recent series of Doctor Who.
• Network 23 is the name of television network in the science fiction television series Max Headroom.
• In June, 2006 a Dr. Pepper commercial was released showing a weather reporter and various other people saying "23" over and over. The commercial was aired on CBS, the station with the all seeing eye. The possible reason for this is that Dr. Pepper claims to have 23 flavors within the softdrink. The all-seeing eye reference is a little suspicious however. Dr. Pepper is a product of the Pepsi corporation, with other numerical beverages including 7-Up.

Video game references

• In the first level of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Inside the deku tree), one puzzle is solved when an enemy you defeat tells you that his brothers must be defeated in a certain order -- 2 3 1 -- because "23 is number 1!"

Musical references

• The sound system Spiral Tribe referred to the number 23 extensively. They held parties on the twenty third day of the month; their flyers, posters and artwork featured 23 imagery; their record label was called Network 23; some music was released under the moniker SP23.

Literary references

• The first issues of the comic book The Filth had 23 pages; the date on the security camera filming Greg Feely at the start of the first issue is 23:11:01; the time as Greg falls asleep on page eight is 02:30.

True with stretched applicability

• Earth's period of rotation (sidereal day) is really 23 hours and 56 minutes, not exactly 24 hours. (That's 4 minutes shorter than a solar day since a day is defined as the time between two noons on the same meridian, which is slightly longer than the period of rotation because meanwhile the Earth is revolving around the Sun.) However, 24 hours is an arbitrary measurement of a day.
• The first Moon landing, Apollo 11 was in the Sea of Tranquility at 23.63 degrees East. The second landing, Apollo 12, was in the Ocean of Storms, 23.42 degrees West. Also, 11 + 12, the numbers of the missions, add up to 23. Also, 42 + 63 = 105, 10 being a multiple of 5 and 5 = 2 + 3. Again, this is stretched as far as the degrees, and there are at least 11 pairs of integers that add to 23, not counting negative integers or zero.
• Earth's axis is off by 23.5 degrees. This is a case of stretched applicability, and it depends on using the arbitrary figure of a circle having 360 degrees to come up with an answer near 23.
• If you add up all the digits in 9/11/2001 you get 23. To make 23, you must add "11" as normal, but "2001" must be added as the numbers "2" and "1". Also arbitrarily implies decimal numerals.
• Pi's first six digits (3.14159) added together equal 23. True, however arbitrarily implies decimal numerals. Also arbitrarily selects six digits. Except that 2x3=6, and it's 5 (2+3) numbers after the decimal place.
• The plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (The Day the Music Died) occurred on February 3 (2/3), 1959. MM/DD date format is an arbitrary convention of American English; in most other countries, DD/MM is the date format convention.

Dubious

• The human biorhythm is 23 days long. Though Hermann Swoboda and Wilhelm Fliess, the two doctors who first posited biorhythm, did determine that a human's 'physical cycle' was 23 days long, biorhythmics is at best a highly speculative and subjective area of study.
• It takes 23 seconds for blood to circulate throughout the entire body. Blood is a suspension and does not flow at the same rate for all of its components. Furthermore, there is no single path blood takes when it circulates. For both these reasons, verification is both difficult and meaningless. In any case, the "second" is an arbitrary fraction of 1/86400 of a solar day.
• The human arm has 23 joints in it. Unconfirmed, and confirmation depends on the definition of joint.
• William Shakespeare was born on 23 April, died on 23 April and had his first portfolio published in 1623. His first play Titus Andronicus was performed January 23 1594. Shakespeare's actual date of birth remains unconfirmed, and the chronology of his plays is still uncertain (see his article for more information). The Comedy of Errors may have been performed before Titus, for example.
• The Prophet Muhammad taught and received the wisdom of God for 23 years. There exist hadith that support this figure, but many more that give other lengths of time.
• Hagbard (Karl Koch), German hacker and inventor of the Trojan horse spyware, died on 23 May. Probable, but not definite. Further, his death was most likely a suicide, with the date chosen intentionally to fit this numerology, since Koch was an avid fan of Robert Anton Wilson's trilogy.
• Taiwan is considered by the Peoples' Republic of China to be the 23rd province.

False

• On average, every 23rd wave on a beach will be twice the size of the average wave. False. This idea exists in many parts of the world, with varying numbers of waves.
• The first song on the first side of the first Beatles album took 23 takes. That would be "I Saw Her Standing There" from Please Please Me, but in reality, the song that took the most takes was "Love Me Do," at fifteen. However the last song (and their shortest "Her Majesty") on technically the last (last recorded) Beatles album is 23 seconds long.
• 666 is said to be taken from 2/3 = 0.666. Very unlikely; see Number of the Beast for its history. Besides, 2/3 is 0.6 periodic or 0.667 by approximation. Actually, 333/500=0.666.

23 pattern

There is also a numerical pattern discovered by Anon Castillo using 2, 3, 5, and 23 and including 17, where you add one and two, then add an increasing number to each sum:

• 1 + 2 = 3
• 2 + 3 = 5
• 3 + 5 = 8 (or 2³)
• 4 + 8 = 12 (or 3 × 2²)
• 5 + 12 = 17
• 6 + 17 = 23
• 7 + 23 = 30 (or 2 × 3 × 5)

This pattern consists of the Triangular numbers plus 2.

Skull and Bones 322

• Tangentially related to "Euler's Identity" this pattern identifies an intercept node of addition, multiplication, exponents, and the transcendentals "e" and "pi."
• Note the left side of the equation is ((3 × 2 × 2) × (3 + 2 + 2)) = (12 × 7), just as December 7 was Pearl Harbor.
• Skull (3 holes) & Bones (2 femurs, each with 2 knobs) numerically is the "Skull and Bones 322 Identity" ---->> (7 × 2 × 23) = 322
• ((3 × 2 × 2) × (3 + 2 + 2)) ~= (3e³ + 2pi² + 2²), and then rearranged for "23" emphasis:
• ((2 × 2 × 3) × (2 + 2 + 3)) ~= (2² + 2pi² + 3e³)
• Also, Musical Key is isolated from "12" potential notes into "7" specific scaled notes.

See also

• Apophenia
• Pareidolia
• Synchronicity
• 47 (number) - another number that is said to occur frequently in connection with nature and human events (and is also, like 23, frequently cited in fiction).

Related Links

• Gate of God Website of author Gary Osborn.

• Gate of God part 1 Illustrated article.

• Gate of God part 2

• Gate of God part 3

• 23 or not 23? Article written by MAD on the topic of 23 symbolism.

--MAD 13 June 2006