17

Seventeen, I have heard, is the most interesting number. Seventeen is superior, say some, and scarier, say others, to any other number.

I remember a talk I heard once in Boston by David Kelley, a math professor, a specialist in 17.

According to Professor Kelley, 17 is the “random number,” meaning the chances are more than random that a random number will be divisible by 17. Here are some other little random things I learned in that talk about seventeen:

• There are 17 distinct ways to fit polygons around a point.

• 17 is the smallest prime whose sum of the digits is a cube

• The book of Genesis records that the Great Flood started on the 17th day of the month, and the ark landed on the 17th day of a different month on top of Mt. Ararat (guess what the elevation of Mt. Ararat is?? Yep, 17,000 feet)

• The Alhambra, the gorgeous Moorish castle in Grenada, Spain, contains 17 different tiling patterns, which is actually the total number of possible tiling patterns using triangles

• The shortest form of Japanese poetry, Haiku, contains exactly 17 syllables

• The White House has 17 bathrooms

• There are 17 miles of corridors in the Pentagon

• There are 17 species of penguins—Professor Kelley pointed out that sadly, among penguins, their divorce rate is 17%

• Seventeen is the number of eyelashes on a yellow pig

• A cow’s saliva increases by 17% while grazing

• The Okapi, also known as the forest giraffe, is the only mammal that can clear its own ears with its tongue, which can grow to 17 inches in length

• At age 17, Jack London wrote the first of his 17 books

• Benjamin Franklin, a 1700s figure was born on January 17, was one of 17 children and moved to Philadelphia at age 17

• The average person breathes 17 times per minute

• Modern Italians view 17 as an unlucky number. Air Italia does not have a 17th row and Italian buildings do not have a 17th floor. Why?? The Roman numeral XVII (for 17) rearranges and spells “VIXI,” which in Latin means, “I have lived,” (meaning “I am dead”) and is used on Italian tombstones

• Tradition holds that Eve was 17 years old when she handed to Adam the forbidden apple. There are 17 sets of chromosomes in the apple.

• Here is something I knew before Professor Kelley’s talk!! Iktinos and Kallikrates, the ancient Athenian architects, chose to place 17 columns on the long side of the Parthenon as part of their equation x = 2y + 1 as their equation to symbolize perfection

• Last but not least: it takes 17 facial muscles to smile (it takes 43 muscles to frown). Seventeen to greet the new day, a new friend, and old friend with warmth and kindness.

So, why does this matter?

Oh, I thought it was interesting on this 17th day of April to remember how fascinated I was by that talk on the power of seventeen long ago. However, in terms of current interest, Seventeen days from now is the long-anticipated AP Art History test for my students (most of whom are seventeen years old).

And in a bit of also-long-anticipated news, on this 17th day of April, on this first day of the week, I look forward to the fact that by the end of this week, I will be on Spring Break. No, the break is not 17 days long—I don’t even think anything about the break will be 17 of anything. The cycle/fascination ends here!

Enjoy the 17th!