Unlucky Number 13
If you do suffer from this phobia, then don’t even think about enrolling at the Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. The president of the college, Rebecca S. Chopp, has outlawed the use of the word “Triskaidekaphobia” at her school. Why? Because, for Colgate University, the number 13 is lucky. You see, the college was established by “13 men who had 13 dollars and 13 prayers.” The school’s address is “13 Oak Drive.” Even their zip code- 13346- has the number 13 in it. And, if you remove the first “13”, and add up the remaining numbers, you’ll still come up with- you guessed it! – the sum of 13.
So, how did 13 end up with such a bad reputation anyhow? There are many explanations. One explanation is that the number 13 brings bad luck because there were 13 people present at “The Last Supper” in the Bible. Another story comes from Norse mythology. One of the nastiest Norse gods, “Loki”, crashed a party at “Valhalla.” Valhalla was the “banquet hall of the gods.” There were 12 guests present at the hall until Loki arrived. With the mean-spirited Norse god as the 13th guest, the affair turned grim. The story goes that “Balder”, “the god of light, joy, and reconciliation”, died when Loki tricked Balder’s
sightless brother Hod into throwing mistletoe at him. Just like Kryptonite to Superman, Mistletoe, you see, was the only thing on earth that could kill Balder.
The famous mystery writer Agatha Christie (1890-1976) actually capitalized on the superstition that surrounds the number 13 when she penned 13 short stories and put them in a book titled, “The Thirteen Problems” in 1933. Each story featured her busybody sleuth, “Miss Jane Marple.” Christie did it again when she wrote the mystery, “Thirteen at Dinner”, which starred Peter Ustinov and Faye Dunaway. It hit the movie screen in 1985.
Whether 13 is actually an unlucky number or not will forever remain a mystery. There are many truths about the number 13, though. For example, it is a prime number. That means that it is only divisible -without there being a remainder- by the number 1 and itself. It is also a “Fibonacci Number.” A Fibonaci Number can be defined as “a number that is the sum of the two preceding numbers.” If you begin with 0 and 1, the sequence would run 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,45,79, and so on.
The forefathers of the United States must not have given much thought to the superstitions that cast a dark shadow on the number 13. In fact, 13 is used extensively in American history. For example, if you examine a United States one dollar bill, you’ll find 13 items all over the reverse side. There are 13 levels in the pyramid. There are also 13 letters in “E Pluribus Unum” and 13 letters in the phrase “Annuit Coeptis”. Above the eagle you can count 13 stars which represent the 13 original colonies. There are also 13 bars on the shield, 13 feathers on the eagle’s wings, 13 arrows in the eagle’s grasp, 13 leaves and 13 olives on the branch.
There are also 13 red and white stripes on an American flag. While you won’t find a 13th floor on a skyscraper, such as in the tall Wells Fargo Center in Portland, Oregon, our forefathers didn’t skip over the number 13 when the Constitution was written. In fact, the 13th Amendment was very important because it finally put an end to slavery.
You can find 13 in a number of other places in the world as well. In the field of science, 13 is the atomic number of aluminum. If you watch a game of Rugby being played, you’ll see 13 players on each team. Do you like to play the game of “Hearts”? If you count the hearts, you’ll find there are a total of 13 of them. In fact, each of the fours suits in a deck of playing cards – spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts – all contain 13 cards.
And finally, if you haven’t already come down with “Triskaidekamania”, (an enthusiasm for the number 13), here is an interesting ditty: “Eleven plus two” is an anagram of “twelve plus one”.
