Why 4, 13, 17, 39 & 666 Are the World's Spookiest Numbers

this video was made possible by brilliant learn complex topics simply for 20 off by being one of the first 200 people to sign up at brilliant.org real life lore math and numbers can be scary but some numbers are more scary than others to a lot of people recently i got kind of bored and decided to look into creating a single number or sequence of numbers that the most people around the world would be uncomfortable with or just not like different cultures around the world consider different numbers to be terrifying for different reasons so whatever frighteningly unlucky number we create needs to be maximized on cultural fears across the world 13 is a spooky number in the west 17 is scary in italy four is frightening across east asia 39 is terrifying in afghanistan and 666 is spooky pretty much across the world so the number that you saw in the thumbnail of this video is based on all of these ones but the big question is why are these numbers considered abjectly terrifying to some but are completely harmless to others what makes the most cursed number sequence in the world so well cursed let's begin with four and continue up from there in numerical order four is a number that strikes terror in the hearts of many across china korea japan malaysia and singapore the reason why is fairly simple but you have to understand the chinese korean and japanese languages in order to really get it in mandarin chinese the word for the number four is the word for the concept of dead or death is almost identically pronounced as su and so it's very easy while speaking chinese to accidentally speak the phrase death while you're attempting to speak the number four the taboo is present in both malaysia and singapore as well because of the modern large chinese populations in both countries and the reason is the same in both the korean and japanese languages as well for both words sounding almost identical or at the very least highly similar so because of this the number four has been fairly taboo in chinese and east asian culture for centuries now mentioning the number four around a sick relative or in a hospital is particularly avoided gifts in groups of four are sometimes unwelcome elevators and apartment buildings will often skip the fourth floor and go directly from floor 3 to floor 5. in hong kong some apartment buildings skip all the floors from 40 to 49 in order to skip all of the 40s although this is more likely to advertise a building with a higher floor count than from any fears of the supernatural in cantonese chinese 14 and 24 are often considered to be even worse than the base 4 because translated 14 sounds more akin to will certainly die while 24 sounds more like easy to die in many chinese neighborhoods there is a noticeable real estate price drop on properties with the number four at the beginning or the end of their addresses neighborhoods have removed four from their street names and become more profitable as a result but perhaps the most extreme example for fear of the number four in chinese culture comes from the 2008 olympic games that were hosted in beijing eight years previously in 2000 beijing bid to host the games then and lost but they declined to apply to host the next games in 2004 and opted instead to wait around to apply again in 2008. part of the speculation for why they did this was out of the cultural fear and apprehension surrounding the number four inside of china but of course there's other numbers that are equally feared in other parts of the world as well let's move on to 13 which is generally more feared in the western world and particularly in anglo-saxon or english-speaking countries there's a lot of theories for how 13 came to be so infamous in the west like the judas theory which suggests that the disciple judas was the last man to sit with christ at the last supper therefore being the 13th member at the table and the one who ultimately betrayed jesus to the romans on friday the 13th in october of 1307 king philip iv of france infamously ordered the arrests of the knights templar so for whatever reason the number 13 and especially friday the 13th is considered so unfortunate in the west that an estimated 17 to 21 million americans suffer from legitimate fears about the date but before you denounce these millions of americans for believing in pure superstition consider the events surrounding apollo 13. the third manned mission to the moon it was launched on april 11 1970 at 1313 and two days later on april the 13th suffered a catastrophic oxygen tank explosion on board that forced the mission to abort and return back to earth but 13 isn't the only number in the teens with a lot of infamy there's also 17 which is primarily feared in italy there's a long history of hatred for the number 17 here in ancient times the followers of pythagoras in southern italy hated the number because it was located right between 16 and 18. perfect representations of 4x4 and 3x6 quadrilaterals pythagoras followers also supposedly murdered a guy for showing the world that the square root of 2 was an irrational number but back to more about 17 in the old testament of the bible it is recorded that the universal flood that swept the world began on the 17th day of the second month the term vexi latin for i lived was a common inscription on tombstones of the deceased however vix-i is also an anagram for x-v-i-i which is 17 in roman numerals which led to an association of the number with the dead at the battle of tudiburg forest in the year 9 ce the german tribes annihilated the roman's 17th 18th and 19th legions from then on 17 was never used by the romans again to ever denote another legion friday the 17th is often considered more unlucky in italy than the 13th and there are some alitalia flights which have removed the 17th row of seats on board their planes moving up in the curse numbers we arrive on 39 which is particularly seen as bad luck in afghanistan without clear origins for why 39 has somehow become lodged in the popular afghan imagination as a symbol of pimping and prostitution it's said to have initially become infamous as a result of a well-known pimp in the city of herat who became known as 39 because of the registration number on his expensive car and the address of his apartment in the pashtun language saying the number 39 is also similar sounding to dead cow which is a well-known slang term in the country for a pimp whatever the origins 39 is such a problem in the country that vehicles bearing the number in their registration plates are so massively undesirable that they're almost impossible to sell 2011 was a particularly problematic year because after the persian new year in march according to the iranian calendar the year was now 1390 so the afghan government began issuing registration plates beginning with 39 and as a result many drivers simply just refuse to register their vehicles that year and risk financial penalties rather than risk the stigma of driving around in a vehicle with 39 on it during the 2010 afghan parliamentary elections one candidate had the misfortune of being listed 39th on the ballot and upon being harassed about it in the streets had his guards open fire into the crowd which killed two people but the next and final big curse number is of course 666 the devil's number supposedly the numbers infamy originates in the bible book of revelations chapter 13 verse 18 which states in the king james version of the bible here is wisdom let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast for it is the number of a man and his number is six six six much has been made about this phrase throughout history with many people associating the number with the devil or the antichrist a good competitor for my most cursed number is another number that was created by mathematician harvey dubner which reads as one zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero six six six zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one the number is known as belfagore's prime and contains numerous superstitious elements the number 666 at the heart of the prime is of course the well-known symbol of the beast the number is then surrounded on either side by 13 zeros and it's all 31 total digits in length which reads as 13 backwards other numbers may be considered scary to different countries and peoples as well in china the numbers 89 6 and 4 are each banned search terms on chinese search engines because of the date 1989 0604 the date of the tiananmen square massacre in beijing with all of these numbers and their infamies now explained let's then create the most cursed number with the most widespread hate and censorship across the world in my opinion i think this number sequence has to be 89 6 4 13 17 39 666 and 4 again maybe followed up by the square root of 2 just for good measure for the pythagoreans and there you go but numbers don't have to be so frightening numbers and mathematics 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Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 1,273,295

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, spooky numbers, why is 4 unlucky in china, why is 4 unlucky, why is 13 number is unlucky, 13, 17, 39, 666

Id: scsNaM5fS0M

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020