Over the ages, people have attributed many facts to numbers.
Numerology, superstition, important dates, and so many other things cling to various numbers, which in some cases gives them great significance.
Today we’ll look at ten fun facts about the number 7!
The number seven is a prime number. If you’re not in the loop, a prime number is a number that can only be divided by itself and the number one. Seven is the fourth prime number, but it’s also a Mersenne prime. A Mersenne prime is more than a standard prime number, as it’s equated to 2^n – 1. In this case, it’s a Mersenne prime because 7 = 2³ – 1.
Both prefixes Sept and Hept mean seven. For example, a Heptagon is a two-dimensional shape that has seven sides. September means the seventh month, which doesn’t make much sense anymore. A long time ago, it used to be the seventh month.
There are seven Deadly Sins within Christian teachings, which are considered the worst of all possible vices. These sins are wrath, sloth, pride, lust, gluttony, envy, and greed. Despite holding particular importance within the Catholic faith, the Seven Deadly Sins were never actually mentioned in the Bible.
There are seven continents in the world. Well, really, it depends on who you ask, and where they studied! If you grew up in the US, you would’ve learned that there are seven continents – North America, South America, Australia, Asia, Europe, Antarctica, and Africa. Some other places in the world see it differently and claim that there are possibly six, five, or even just four continents.
A US park ranger from Vermont was struck by lightning seven times and lived to tell the tale! Roy Sullivan was first struck in 1942 when he was 30 years old. Between then and 1977, he was struck a further six times, and he still didn’t die! He ended up dying in 1983 from a gunshot wound, of all things! The odds of being hit by lightning seven times is 4.15 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s 4.5 in one hundred nonillion!)
Musicians seem to be obsessed with the number seven. We have a Swiss and a Korean artist, both called Seven. There’s a British band called Seven, an American artist called Se7en, a band from New York called The Seven, the British band S Club 7, and a rock band from Georgia called Sevendust. We’re not going to even attempt to list the number of albums and EPs with titles closely relating to the number seven, but there are at least 40 of them! The same goes for songs called either Seven or 7, as many musicians ranging from David Bowie to Prince to Moby to Tyler the Creator have titled their songs thus!
Not everyone believes that cats have nine lives. In some parts of Spain, Germany, and Iran, it’s claimed that cats have just seven lives! I wonder what happened to the other two lives?
The number seven is a special number when it comes to memory, too. The amount of numbers in a series that you can recall accurately is called your digit-span. On average, most people can only correctly remember a series of seven digits accurately.
It’s commonly known that there are seven clearly defined colors or hues in a rainbow. These colors, which make up the acronym ROYGBIV, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
The number seven recurs time and time again in folklore around the world. One common theme which reoccurs is the concept of the seventh son of the seventh son. In Ireland, it’s believed that the seventh son of the seventh son will grow up to be a great healer, while in some parts of Latin America, they would be a werewolf. Transylvanian folklore, unsurprisingly, expects the seventh son of a seventh son to inevitably turn into a vampire!
The number seven is genuinely one of those numbers that doesn’t make sense.
Do we as humans simply have an inexplicable fascination with the number seven and merely see it everywhere because we focus so much on it, or is it actually just a number that pops up everywhere with little rhyme or reason?!
I’m not sure whether I can tell you, to be honest. That being said, this article has a total of seven hundred and seven words!
