1.11.11

Having done interesting numbers to death this year, I have nothing new to say on the subject of one.  That must be why it’s the loneliest number. 

I will, instead, lift this paragraph from my third post of 2011 (I blogged three times on January 1st, while everyone else was nursing hangovers; if you didn’t know then what you were letting yourself in for, you can’t blame me):

1.1.11 [for 1.1.11 read 1.11.11]: Isn’t that a great date? It’s like 2011 is saying, Yes, you had some interesting numbers in 2010; but let me show you what I’ve got…

2010 had the consecutive (8/9/10, 11:12:13), the repetitive (10/10/10) and the palindrome (01/11/10). Of course, it all depends on your perspective: my American friends won’t have had the same first one because they put the month before the day; here in the UK 8/9/10 happened in September but in the States it was in August. Then there’s the manipulation: if I had added or subtracted zeros then 8/9/10 would have been 08/09/10 and rather dull; 01/11/10 would not have been a palindrome at all as 1/11/10.

I then went off at a tangent, so I had to do some research on the number 1.

There is some useful info on Wikipedia:

• it is an integer
• it comes after zero and before two (seriously?)
• one is the identity for multiplication, so if you multiply any number by one, it remains that number

I needed Wikipedia for that?

What else can one share about one? 

• it is the atomic number of hydrogen

And that’s all I got.  That’s just ace, isn’t it?

Turns out I did have a little something new to say on the subject of one after all; but I never said it would be interesting.  One forgets, sometimes, just how dull one can be.