Borrowed Numbers
Where our numbers come from. Forty days of mourning, seven days in a week, and the people who chose them.
Why do so many families mourn for forty days? Why does the week have seven days, and not ten? Why did one writer's joke make 42 famous around the world?
Every number we live by was chosen by someone, and then borrowed from culture to culture. Each episode takes one number and follows it back through history: who used it first, why it stuck, and how it travelled.
How we tell it
- One number per episode, with every place it turns up.
- We trace where customs and beliefs come from; we don't judge them.
- No numerology: numbers don't have powers. People chose them, for reasons we can find.
- Every date, name and quote is checked against published sources, listed at the end of each page.
Episodes
Why 42? The Answer to Life, the Universe and EverythingIn 1978 a radio comedy gave the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything: 42. Why that number? Its writer explained it twice. Then the world joined in.
Why Are There 7 Days in a Week? The Story of the Number 7The day, the month and the year come from the sky, but the week does not. How Shabbat, seven wandering lights and Rome gave us seven days and their names.
Why 40 Days After Death? The Story of the Number 40Families in Cairo, Athens, Istanbul and Moscow gather again forty days after a death. We trace the number 40 from Egypt and the Bible to quarantine.