Revelation

One dictionary definition of revelation is:

a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known in a dramatic way; the divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world.

Figure 1: view through Starbuck's window to parked car.
The number plate B 1949 WFN is clearly visible.

Today, on the day before my 70th birthday, I had my own little revelation while sitting in the local Starbucks. I was seated and looking out through the glass windows when I noticed a car number plate: B 1949 WFN. It caught my eye because 1949 is the year of my birth. The car belonged to a male Westerner who had entered the cafe with his son, aged about 11 or 12. It was parked there for a fair while as the two of them sat somewhere in the cafe. My attention kept returning to the number plate and it was only shortly before the guy left the cafe and drove off that I had my revelation. The nature of the revelation gives some idea of how my mind works because I am forever scanning number plates to discern something of their mathematical significance.

Normally, I just try to factorise the number but I know that 1949 is prime and I was looking this time for a deeper significance. To me, the B 1949 represented BORN 1949 and WFN possibly conveyed some information about the date of my death but how can any numerical information be extracted from three letters? Well, to the mathematical eye, it's fairly obvious. When working with number bases higher than 10, the digits 0 to 9 are exhausted and letters are used instead to represent numbers in the higher bases. For example, base 16 uses A, B, C, D, E and F for 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 respectively. W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet and corresponds to a numerical value of 32 in this system and thus the smallest base that WFN could represent as a number is 33. The letters could also represent bases 34 (X), 35 (Y) or 36(Z) but I am only working with the smallest possible base in this case and that is 33.

Figure 2: my tweet for the day when
I turned 25666 days old

What decimal number is represented by WFN in base 33? The conversion is W=32, F=15 and N=23 and 32*33^2+15*33+23 gives the number 35366. How can this number be interpreted as a date? Well, my hobby is to keep track of the number of days I've been alive and to analyse the mathematical significance of that number each morning. For example, today I turned 25566 days old and this was the tweet. So how old will I be on the day that I turn 35366 days and what date does this correspond to? It turns out I'll be almost 97 years old and the date is Tuesday, January 30th 2046. Today (April 2nd 2019) is also a Tuesday. In Figure 3, I've included the information that Wolfram Alpha threw up.

Figure 3: output from Wolfram Alpha
for the input shown

I'm not taking any of this too seriously but with my very significant 70th birthday imminent, I had been thinking a lot about mortality and pondering how much longer I might have to live. This "revelation" from the car number plate has provided me with an indication of how much longer I might have. Only time will tell if it's an accurate indicator. If I do live that long then I hope I can remain strong, mentally and physically. In the meantime, that number:

35366

has been carved into my mind and gives a target to "work" towards. I notice that 366 is the maximum possible days in a year and the number contains all the digits in both 365 and 366. What other properties does this number have? Well, it's biprime, meaning that it has two prime factors: 2 * 17683. The date I turned 17683 days old was Monday, September 1st, 1997. I was living in Singapore at that time with Sylvia. 

Consulting the Online Encyclopaedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS), one entry for 35366 is: 

OEIS A187382: number of 8-step S, NW and NE-moving king's tours on an n x n board summed over all starting positions (where n=9 in the case of 35366). 

The chess reference is interesting because chess has always been in the background of my life since I first saw some family friends playing against each other when I was about seven or eight. The chessboard features in many allusions to life such as this one from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

“Tis all a Chequer-board of nights and days

Where Destiny with men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, 

And one by one back in the closet lays.”

Just as I was typing this a Google Alert popped up for Meher Baba. There were three alerts for the day. The first contained a link from Bowdoin College Library to Baba's Discourses offering the book on loan. The second linked to a Meher Baba Meditation Centre is Bhopal. The third link contains a quote from Baba to Rano:

LOVE AND ITS EXPRESSIONS 

Meher Baba 

Never worry about repetitions of the same things in your letters to me. Love never tires of repetition, rather repetition makes words of love all the sweeter. What is there for those who love but only to say, “I love you” over and over again till the very end of life, and it includes everything which more than satisfies both the lover and the Beloved! 

So, dear Rano, go on repeating the same loving tune in all your letters. I love nothing more than love and its expressions, even if repeated millions of times. 

BECAUSE OF LOVE, p. 11, Rano Gayley  

Copyright 1983 Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust

Of course, I noticed that the date of my demise falls a day before the anniversary of Baba's death which at first I was reluctant to comment on in case it was thought that I was comparing the insignificance of my passing with that the Lord of the Universe. However, I took the Baba alerts popping up while I was typing to indicate that I should make mention of it. My coming into the light of Meher Baba has been the single most important development of my life and so it does deserve comment when discussing my life and death.