number symbolism

Introduction
Numerals and numerology
Arithmomancy
Pythagoreanism
Cultural associations of some numbers
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 100
Number and reality
- Nature’s numbers
- Number’s nature

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

Close-up of a sunflower head showing seeds arranged in a spiral pattern that follows the Fibonacci sequence.

Diagram showing four types of polygonal numbers with colored dots arranged in geometric patterns: blue triangles for triangular numbers, green squares for square numbers, red pentagons for pentagonal numbers, and purple hexagons for hexagonal numbers, each illustrating how numbers like 1, 3, 6, 10, 4, 9, 16, 5, 12, 22, 6, 15, and 28 can be visually represented.

Whirling dervishes in white robes perform the Sema ritual in a circular hall with a wooden floor, as a large audience watches from balconies in Yenikapi Mevlevihanesi, Istanbul.

Related Questions

How did Protestant and Catholic numerologists use 666 against religious opponents?
How did Pythagorean ideas about music influence Johannes Kepler’s music of the spheres?
How did ancient Babylonian religion connect three gods with Heaven, Earth, and the Abyss?
How did ancient Babylonians use numbers to study eclipses and other astronomical events?
How did ancient Egyptian priests use numbers to predict the Nile’s flooding?
How did ancient Egyptians connect three forms of the sun god with times of day?
How did the Pythagoreans connect numbers to the structure of the universe?
How did the Pythagoreans represent square numbers with dots?
How did the Ten Commandments add symbolic importance to the number 10?
How did the number 9 appear in Anglo-Saxon legal customs?
How do numerologists use names and birth dates to interpret personality or predict the future?
How do symbols such as circles, crosses, colors, letters, and numbers communicate larger ideas?
How does arithmomancy turn letters in a name into numbers?
How does the Yijing use 64 configurations related to the number 8?
How have numbers been used as religious and cultural symbols throughout history?
Which parts of Kepler’s ideas about planetary motion became accepted science?
Why did Pythagoreans associate even numbers with the female principle?
Why did Pythagoreans associate odd numbers with the male principle?
Why did Pythagoreans consider 10 to be the most perfect number?
Why did humans develop a decimal number system based on 10?
Why did the Pythagoreans connect the number 5 with marriage?
Why do some people fear the number 666?
Why does the Arabic letter alif symbolize the unity of Allah in Islamic mystical thought?
Why is 666 called the number of the beast in the Book of Revelation?
Why is 9 associated with sadness or pain in some traditions?
Why is Andreas Helwig’s calculation involving Vicarius Filii Dei considered misleading?

Geography & Travel Languages

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External Websites

National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - The Cultural Origins of Symbolic Number
University of California, Berkeley - The computation and language lab - The Cultural Origins of Symbolic Number (PDF)
Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing - Royal Society Open Science - Learning artificial number symbols with ordinal and magnitude information

number symbolism

cultural association

Written by

Ian Stewart

Professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, England. Author of Concepts of Modern Mathematics, Does God Play Dice, Flatterland, From Here to Infinity, and Nature's Numbers.

Ian Stewart

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

History

number symbolism, cultural associations—including religious, philosophical, and aesthetic—with various numbers. Humanity has had a love-hate relationship with numbers from the earliest times. Bones dating from perhaps 30,000 years ago show scratch marks that possibly represent the phases of the Moon. The ancient Babylonians observed the movements of the planets, recorded them as numbers, and used them to predict eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. The priesthood of ancient Egypt used numbers to predict the flooding of...

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