Favourite Numbers
My wife and I frequently watch repeats of The Big Bang theory on the CTV Comedy channel. It's an easy show to put on in the background, and there are enough *actually good* episodes mixed in the forgettable bunch that it's worth throwing them on when we want to watch something, but not pay too much attention to it1.
In one of the most recent episodes we watched, Sheldon is wearing a shirt that features the number 73 inside a white circle. My wife asked me, "what's the significance of '73'?" Knowing the character's appreciation of "nerd" pop culture references I assumed it was probably related to Speed Racer or something (the number font and circle itself are reminiscent of Herbie the Love Bug, so that's what got me thinking "racing"). Of course, I didn't know the actual answer so I went on a search.
I found the answer courtesy of a Big Bang Theory fan wikipedia article. I don't know if this is 100% the truth, but it checks out. To save you a click through a poorly-designed website2, here's the answer:
73 is Sheldon Cooper's favorite number in The Big Bang Theory. He first expresses his love for it in "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis".
Jim Parsons was born in the year 1973. "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis" is the 73rd episode of The Big Bang Theory.
The explanation from "The Alien Parasite Hypothesis":
Sheldon: "The best number is 73. Why? 73 is the 21st prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the 12th and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying 7 and 3."'
I'm not going to double-check that information - I'm sure the writers already did that. But suffice it to say, it suggests that on top of Sheldon's opinion that 73 is "the best number", it's definitely his favourite. It got me thinking - does anyone else have a "favourite number"?
I do - and to avoid any security threats I'm not going to share it (even though I am pretty sure I don't use it in any passwords) - but I'm not sure how I came to pick it as a favourite number. In actual fact I have two favourite numbers.
When I was growing up I think it was the number 8; I don't really know why, but perhaps it's because you use the letter "S" as a starting point to draw the number. That's no longer my favourite number. I suppose I grew out of it?
But my current favourite (and back-up) seems to pop up everywhere. When I first started at McDonald's, it was my punch-in number. And then when my punch-in info was mysteriously deleted from the system, the back-up number became my punch-in number! Eerie. Or did that simply become my back-up number because it replaced the original? Hard to say.
If I think harder on it, I don't think I've seen that number pop up in many places in my own life. I do see it in sports jersey numbers with some popular players, and in fact I use it for my own softball jerseys. But I didn't grow up idolizing any players with those specific numbers, so it's definitely not related to sports.
I don't know. It's a weird thing. Do you have a favourite number?
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The only episodes I really don't like slogging through are the first 1-3 seasons...they are not good.↩