A Number That Is More

Every newspaper editor and scientist is pestered by numerological crackpots. People who do maths obsessively and calculate with exact detail the forthcoming assassination of Mick Jagger or the impossibility of the square root. Desperately these folks try to convince everyone that numbers have meaning greater than themselves at the behest of some higher force. Tarot cards are the ordinary playing cards of certain European countries but have been elevated to mystical status on exactly the same principle.

It has become clear however that one particular number does have higher meaning. So imperfect is our knowledge that we have not yet grasped the full implications of the number. But experience proves that those implications are certainly there.

Many many years ago even I went to school occasionally. I would have gone more often but pterodactyls kept attacking the school bus and brontosauruses kept eating the building. On one particular day however a rather young teacher took on the hopeless task of trying to teach the class I was imprisoned in. He started well enough for a diffident young man not much older than the students. Then he created a situation where several students started asking him questions and talking to each other at the same time. He began to smile as everyone talked to him and the rest of the class at once. Thinking this was rather stupid and having a louder voice than most I simply turned my head away and said "sixty-four". This brought the noise to an end as everyone was stopped in their tracks by this incongruous comment and wondered what it meant and where it came from. It meant nothing of course. It nevertheless enabled the teacher to regain control of the class and the lesson proceeded.

By the end of the lesson everyone had forgotten about sixty-four. Or so I thought. It turned out the two people sitting at my desk had not forgotten. DarBid and Nosnoj (don't ask) kept asking me what sixty-four meant. They tried my trick on other occasions when classes got out of hand but their efforts had no effect as they shouted it rather than using simple tones which left the number to speak for itself. This went on for several weeks. What had they seen in this number? Why use this particular one when you have an infinite number of alternatives?

A trick you can employ on someone you wish to gain advantage over is to say "I know your weakness" straight to their face and never mention the subject again. This puts people off because they wonder what it is you might know about them. Try the same with sixty-four. If you are asked a question designed to put you on the spot look the questioner right in the eye and say "sixty-four". They cannot just dismiss the comment as lunacy because sixty-four has a precise meaning. But they do not know what it is. Have you said something good or bad? Worthwhile or irrelevant? They cannot work it out. But they know something particular has been said. This knowledge will haunt them every time they see you. The power of sixty-four has not yet been fully utilised but can never be discounted.

Sixty-four as a number is quite comforting because it is a multiple we understand. We live in a world of knockout competitions of different sorts and everyone understands that in a knockout 64 goes down to 32 and then 16 and 8 and 4 and the final 2. It also goes up to 128 but that is too long a number to have the same emotional impact. Is it the mathematical pleasantry we respond to in sixty-four? Or is it something altogether more sinister?

Consider the sound. The 's' aspirates but is incomplete. It leads us into anticipation of what will come next. The short 'i' is further clipped by the 'xt' combination which the unlengthenable final 'y' cannot quite rescue. Then the 'f' registers as the beginning of an 'aw' sound which brings everything back to earth. 'Aw' is the sound of certainty and depth not speculation. Sixty-four is a number which knows not a number which thinks. So is the person who says it. But there is more.

Infinity is for God alone. Humans have a finite trial here on earth to prepare for their infinite existence with or without God. Therefore to every human endeavour there is an end. It can be measured. The word 'glee' has the same sound at the end as 'sixty-three'. 'Sixty-four' just sounds like 'or'. It is not for any of us to presume on the judgment of God. But if something you have done is measured would you rather it were sixty-three or sixty-four? Maybe only sixty-three of anything are worthy of the ultimate rewards of anything. Is this merely my potentially blasphemous speculation? Try saying sixty-four to someone then tell me otherwise.