You mush have seen the pictures and television clips of the stars performing at Nelson Mandela's recent birthday bash. The living legend recently celebrated his 90th birthday in what was called ‘The 46664 party'. The number was chosen because it was Mandela's prison number during his 27-year incarceration for trying to topple South Africa's apartheid regime. And precisely 46664 tickets went on sale for the three-and-a-half-hour concert that honoured Mandela.
The number looked innocent enough at first but then it seemed to stand out for a very ominous reason – the figure 666 in the centre. It reminded me of The Omen, the 1976 horror movie that was re-released on 06/06/06 – reinforcing the 666 motif and all that Armageddon fear.
The number, more sinister than its sister number 13, has long been associated with doomsday. That gives us two ominous numbers recognised worldwide – 666 and 13. Here's the rest of my list of formidable numbers that are recognised globally, almost like celebrities themselves:
The number 3.14. This was my favourite number in school. Also known as Pi – the mathematical constant – this is a transcendental number which means that it cannot be expressed in any finite series of arithmetic or algebraic operations. It has an infinite number of definitions and sounds very zen-like.
The number 10. In astronomy, sports and religion, the number 10 rears its head ever so often. Remember the 10 Commandments and the 10 plagues? In football, the number 10 often is associated with the jersey number of the game's top players such as Pele, Zinedine Zidane and Diego Maradona.
Last is the number 4, the only number in the English language that is spelt with the same number of letters as the number itself. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out what it means when it comes suffixed after Radio. Keep rocking that frequency!
