The Number Nine

[sarin at erols.com]

The number nine was of great importance in ancient China as well as it
represented the heavenly regions.  More recently, in the time of Timur,
most royal gifts were made in nines.  Did Chinese and Indians discover the
mathematical qualities of nine independently, or did ancient central asian
tribes take this idea with them wherever they went?

Amita Sarin

>Das wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 18 May 1997, Patricia Meredith Greer wrote:
>>
>>> And what can we make of the fact that the sum of the units
>>> in each of these numbers = 9? eg. 1 728 000 =
>>> 1+7+2+8=18=1+8=9?  This is true of so many of the "indic"
>>> numbers we come across -- the japa mala of 108 beads,etc.
>>> Are there any specific references to this number in the
>>> ancient literature? Or should we look to the 3?
>>
>>This is NOT a scholarly opinion -- in any sense of that word :-).
>>During an idle holiday few years ago, I was fooling around with
>>various "indic" numbers, calculations etc.  They *seemed* to be
>>based on trinary logic.
>>
>>A rudimentary example is how easy it is to factor numbers - 108
>>is (3**3) x (2**3) --  of course, if you like symmetry and sequences
>>you can also multiply that by (1**3)!  That would make 3 factors,
>>3 numbers in a sequence and 3 cubes.  The other number mentioned
>>1,728,000 can be trivially split as (2**3) x (3**3) x (2**3) x (10**3).
>>[ By the way, "a**b" means "a" raised to the power of "b".]
>>
>>Bizarre?  Certainly.  But most numbers that I looked at had the
>>"thread of 3", interwoven in it.
>
>Nice to see some mathematics on this channel! Actually, I think that your
>observation is well worth looking into. The number 3 is sacred, and the
>ancient Indians (and not only them) had a thing for mystique. Indologists
>with an interest in mathematics or numerology might find something of
>interest here. One caveat: Beware of drawing uncritical solutions!
>
>Lars Martin Fosse
>
>
>Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse
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