Unlucky for some

Earlier this week, when talking about horseshoes (see here) I mentioned the number seven and why it's considered lucky. Today - the 13th (but not a Friday) - we're going to talk about the supposedly unlucky number thirteen. 

The number does have some curious properties. 

Did you know that Eleven plus Two is an anagram of Twelve plus One? 

Think that's weird? How about this: 

13 x 13 = 169 is a numeric palindrome of 961 = 31 x 31.  

Check it. It's true. But it gets weirder ... 

If you write 13 x 13 as 13²  and then insert plus signs between all the digits, the equation looks like this: 

 (1 + 3)² = 1 + 6 + 9 is the same as 9 + 6+ 1 = (3 + 1)² 

And it still works! How odd is that? 

Finally, did you know that the sum of the first 13 Prime numbers is 238, whose sum of digits (2 + 3 + 8) is 13? 

It's no wonder that thirteen is a number shrouded in mystery and superstition. And there are people with a genuine fear - Triskaidekaphobia to give it its medical name -  of the number 

Many tall buildings don't have a 13th floor. Many hotels don't have a room with number 13 (often relabelled as 12A). It's far worse in America than in the UK where they really take this stuff seriously in urban planning and architectural design. You just try to find a 13th Avenue. 

In Italy, you won’t find a number 13 on any house between 12 and 14, but you might find a number 12½. In France, socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) used to hire themselves out as extra guests to keep a dinner party from being considered unlucky. And the Savoy Hotel in London has a metre high sculpture of a cat called Kaspar that is sat at any table where there are 13 guests so as not to jinx their meal. He is always given a table napkin, a full place setting and a meal. So my advice is … book a table for 13. A free meal at the Savoy? Now that’s good luck.

All this fuss over a simple number. But why? 

The most common theory concerns the Last Supper. Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus and who later committed suicide, was the 13th guest at the table. Another theory from Scandinavia claims that thirteen is bad luck because the 13th demigod to join their pantheon was Loki the Evil One, who brought mischief and misfortune to Mankind. Yet another theory comes from ancient Egypt. To these people life was a quest for spiritual ascension that involved passing through 12 stages and a 13th beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolised death. 

My personal belief is that it's all to do with the church and the Battle of the Sexes. Thirteen was a special number for ancient Moon and Goddess-worshipping cultures because it corresponded to the number of lunar cycles in a year (13 x 28 = 364 days). There is a 27,000 year old carving that was found near the famous Lascaux cave paintings in France that depicts a female figure holding a crescent Moon-shaped horn that has 13 notches carved into it. And the 22,000 year old East African Ishango bone has similar (I wrote about it and Moon worship here).

The link between monthly lunar and menstrual cycles meant that the Moon was always feminised which didn't sit well with the male-dominated church. And so the theory goes that the Christian Solar/Male Calendar was superimposed over the older pagan Lunar/Female version and 12 defeated 13. 

Odd numbers (the clue is in the name) do seem to be viewed differently to even numbers in Western society. And there are whole websites dedicated to 13-related weirdness and trivia. 

You'll read that the characters Stan and Hilda Ogden, in the British soap opera Coronation Street, lived at 12a Coronation Street to avoid their address being number 13. And that, in Formula 1, there is no car with the number 13. Then there's the ill-fated Apollo 13 and ...

However, the reality is that you can dig up stories to support any wild theory if you really want to. Yes, the Apollo 13 oxygen tank explosion happened on April the 13th 1970. So what? It’s just a coincidence. No one would have paid any notice if the same thing had happened to Apollo 12 on April the 12th. And let’s not forget that the Apollo 13 astronauts got home safely. Apollo 1, meanwhile, was destroyed by fire on the 27th January 1967, killing all three astronauts aboard. 

So which was more unlucky? 

Sadly, people tend to bend the facts to suit their pretty fables. For example, the Columbia Space Shuttle was launched on 16-01-2003. These numbers added together make … 13. 

Woo! Spooky!

But, of course, that only works if you write the full year. Apply the same rules to the ill-fated Challenger shuttle and the results are quite different i.e. 28-01-1986 = 35. 

And then there's the strange belief that anyone with 13 letters in their name has 'Devil's luck'. The alleged proof lies in the fact that many infamous murderers have 13 letters to their names: Charles Manson. Harold Shipman. Frederick West. Saddam Hussein. Jeffrey Dahmer. Theodore Bundy. Jack the Ripper. Spooky, eh? 

Really?

But what about Dr Crippen? Whichever way you slice it, his names never add up to 13 digits. Peter Hawley Harvey Crippen (24). P H H Crippen (10). Peter Crippen (12). Myra Hindley has 11 and Ian Brady a measley 8. Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, has 14. Idi Amin had a pathetic 7 and the worst serial killer of time, Adolf Hitler, has only 11. I could go on. 

And, let's face it, Theodore Bundy and Frederick West are a bit dubious. No one ever referred to them as anything other than Ted and Fred. And the worst example of all is surely Jack the Ripper? I'm pretty that wasn't his actual name. 

'And what name have you chosen for the child?' 

'Jack. Jack the Ripper. We think it suits him, vicar. Don't it suit him Nancy?' 

'Yeah. He looks like a Ripper don't he?' 

I can't see the police pulling potential murder suspects in off the street just because they have 13 letters to their names. 

Although, interestingly, 'Prime Minister' has 13 letters.