Numerology is the study of numbers in everyday life.

You can assign a different number to every letter of the alphabet, so a=1, b=2, c=3,..., z=26.
You could add up the number for each letter in a word, so the word 'rat' would be r=18, since it is the 18th letter of the alphabet, a=1, since it is the 1st letter of the alphabet, and t=20, since it is the 20th letter of the alphabet.
18+1+20=39, so 'rat' would equal 39. You could do the same for any other word.

A different numerology method would be to accept every prime number, such as 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,... as good, and since every composite number is a product of prime factors, every composite number can be accepted as good.

Different number bases can produce interesting results, even though the numbers can be translated from one base to another.

We can start with base 2, or binary, which uses the numbers 0 and 1, and which computers use as their machine code. Big numbers would have to be represented as a large number of 0's and 1's, so this is not a good base for everyday use.

Next is base 8, or octal, which uses the numbers 0-7, and the number 8 would be 10. It used to be popular for programming computers, but fell out of use as computers got more powerful.

Then, of course, there's base 10, or decimal, which uses the digits 0-9 and the number 10 is written as 10. Everyone uses it in everyday life and it is very popular, so we'll probably continue to use it for a long time.

Next is base 12, or duodecimal, which uses the digits 0-9, and 10 is written as A, 11 as B, and 12 is written as 10. This number base has a lot of prime factors including 2,3,4,and 6. A lot of scientists think we should switch to this base because of this, however I think people prefer to stay with decimal.

Finally, there is base 16, or hexadecimal, which uses the digits 0-9. 10 is written as A, 11 as B, 12 as C, 13 as D, 14 as E, and 15 as F. 16 is written as 10. Computers can understand hex (short form for hexadecimal) fairly easily when converted to binary, and is the favorite base for computer programmers.

I think people will continue to use base 10 (decimal) for a long time, however when computers become present in every aspect of society, we might switch to base 16 (hexadecimal).

Please let me know what you think of these numerology methods.
Best wishes,
Isaac

Last edited by Isaac; 06/17/12 01:17 AM.