Twenty Seven
/ An illustrated collection of phenomena related to the number ‘27’ which for many years I used as my pen name
/ 2014
/ Drawing
/

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Human skin cells regrow every 27 days (producing around 1,000 new skins in a lifetime).
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The pressure at the core of the earth is around 27,000 tons per square inch (~370 gigapascals).
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There are 27 prayer beads in a typical Buddhist “mala,” or rosary (108 / 4).
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Two golden rectangles put corner-to-corner form angles of 27 degrees.
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The Telefol language of Papau New Guinea uses a base-27 counting system, derived from counting human body parts — the left pinky to the left thumb (1-5); the wrist, lower arm, elbow, upper arm, and shoulder (6-10); the side of the neck, ear, and left eye (11-13); the nose (14); and similarly on the right side in reverse order, from the right eye to the right pinky (15-27)
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27 is one of the few “self-locating” strings in Pi. Self-locating strings appear at the position corresponding to their value. Using “zero-based” indexing (counting the number after the decimal place as position number zero, which is customary in computer science), 27 occurs in the 27th and 28th positions.
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In the Bible’s Book of Genesis, God creates humans in the 27th verse: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
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Hindu astrology divides the sky into 27 Nakṣatras, or lunar mansions: Ashwini, Bharani, Kritika, Rohini, Mrigashīrsha, Ārdrā, Punarvasu, Pushya, Āshleshā, Maghā, Pūrva, Uttara, Hasta, Chitra, Svātī, Viśākhā, Anurādhā, Jyeshtha, Mula, Pūrva Ashādhā, Uttara Aṣāḍhā, Śrāvaṇa, Śrāviṣṭha, Shatabhisha, Pūrva Bhādrapadā, Uttara Bhādrapadā, and Revati.
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The Cayley-Salmon theorem states that a smooth cubic surface over an algebraically closed field contains 27 straight lines. This theorem forms the basis of the E6 Algebra.
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The diameter of the moon is .272 times that of the earth — approximately 27%.
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The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, of which five have different forms when used at the end of a word — making 27 distinct letters in all.
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A typical human body contains around 7 x 1027 atoms. That’s 7 followed by 27 zeros.
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The atomic weight of alumninum’s only stable isotope is 27. Stable isotopes are not radioactive, so they don’t experience radioactive decay.
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The New Testament contains 27 books — Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.
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Cobalt blue pigment is commonly used in oil painting, because of its extreme color stability. Cobalt is the 27th element.
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In the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the 27th hexagram is Corners of the Mouth. This hexagram communicates the importance of feeding one’s superior (and not inferior) impulses — if one’s best self is nourished, good fortune will follow.
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In Buddhist philosophy, 27 is the highest level of spiritual attainment in Rupa-loka (the material world). Above that are four more levels of attainment in the non-material world — infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and finally: neither perception nor non-perception.
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In the King James version of the Bible’s Old Testament, the 27th word is “deep” — In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
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In Stephen King’s It, the eponymous being returns once every 27 years to feast on little children before going into slumber again.
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According to Feng Shui, for economic prosperity, it’s considered good luck to keep 27 identical coins in your house.
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The “27 Club” is a pop culture meme describing the many artists who died at age 27 — including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Brian Jones, and Amy Winehouse.
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27 is a “Harshad number.” Harshad numbers are divisible by the sum of their parts. The word “Harshad” comes from Sanskrit — harṣa (joy) and da (give) — literally meaning: joy giver.
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Chinese blue and white porcelain traditionally uses cobalt blue pigment as a coloring agent, due to its extreme stability. Cobalt is the 27th element.
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27 is the only positive number that is three times the sum of its digits.
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The ASCII code for the Escape key is 27.
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The Large Hadron Collider is the highest-energy particle collider ever constructed, and considered to be “one of the great engineering milestones of mankind.” Its circumference is 27 kilometers.
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In the Platonic dialogue, Timaeus, Plato states that God created the “Cosmic Soul” of the universe using two mathematical strips of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 1, 3, 9, 27, arranged in the shape of an inverted “V.” This shape is known as the “Platonic Lambda,” in which the highest number is 27.
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Walt Disney invented Mickey Mouse in 1927, on a cross-country train trip from Los Angeles to New York.
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M27 (the “Dumbbell Nebula”) was the first planetary nebula to be discovered — by Charles Messner, in 1764.
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There are (2 + 7 = 9) prime numbers less than 27 (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23).
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According to Incan legend, there were 27 roads leading to the lost city of El Dorado.
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The average speed of a human ejaculation is 27–28 miles per hour.
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The Book of Revelation is the 27th and final book of the New Testament. Its author, St. John of Patmos, is celebrated each year on December 27th.
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Saturn reassumes the same position every 27 years. In Astrology, this is called the “Saturn Return,” which occurs between the ages of 27 and 29, and then again at 54. The Saturn Return is said to be a time of reckoning, when people weed out their lives.
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Accounting for leap years and measuring a year as 365.25 days, there are 31,557,600 seconds in a year. The sum of those numbers ( 3 + 1 + 5 + 5 + 7 + 6 + 0 + 0 ) is 27.