666: The number of the beast (and, gulp, today's date)

Good that Dhoni is not batting today. If he had hit 6,6,6 in an over, god knows what ill luck it would have brought on him or the Indian team. If you are still ignorant of this number, let me tell you. On the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year, a combination of theology, mathematics and good old-fashioned superstition is bringing a controversial passage from the New Testament into the 21st century. Today is 06/06/06; devilishly close to 666. June 6, 2006, or 6-6-06, yields the dreaded number 666, known in the Bible as a sure sign of the apocalypse. Here's another diabolic number: 7734. Remember as a kid punching the digits into a calculator, then turning the calculator upside down, so they spelled "hell"?. Fear of the number 666 is called Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. "Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six." (Revelation 13:16-18, New Revised Standard Version) The number 666 -- the "number of the beast," according to the Book of Revelation -- conjures devilish images for many, so forecasts of evil, even doom, are rampant regarding dates or places where the number occurs, including today, June 6, or 6-6-06. No surprise, then, that someone has found a way to make money off all these fears: coming soon is a remake of the 1976 horror film, "The Omen," the story of a modern-day birth of an Antichrist figure in the form of an evil boy named Damien (the original starred Gregory Peck and Lee Remick). Producers have scheduled the movie's release date for -- when else? -- today, June 6, 2006. (multiplexes are slated to play the new film, releasing today, at 6.06 pm.) Maybe the tickets are priced at Rs.66.6. I read that expectant mothers are delaying labour so that they don't give birth on the date associated with Antichrist. Famous persons born on this 'dreaded' day are Sukarno, first President of Indonesia, Sunil Dutt, Indian actor and politician and Björn Borg, Swedish tennis player. I think their moms didn't know about the 666 phenomenon. 666 SIGHTINGS Among many coincidences that occur with numbers, life itself is based partly on these three: Carbon atoms, key to life as we know it, have six protons, six neutrons and six electrons in their most common form. It seems the world's most expensive mobile number is 666 6666. The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is w - so www. shows how evil the internet is! And, Viagra has a molecular weight of 666.7g/mol. Whether by superstition, strange happening or clever intent, 666 has become a cultural phenomenon. Here are a few more examples: ٠ In 1999, the Crystal Palace in London opened the Tower Building for meetings of the Fifth Parliament of Europe. The membership totaled 679; yet, the galley held 680 seats. Seat No. 666 remained empty. ٠ Heavy metal group Iron Maiden released its album "The Number of the Beast" in 1982. That same year, while touring, producer Martin Birch was reportedly involved in a car accident. When the bill for repairs came to 666 British pounds, Birch insisted on paying more. ٠ After his presidency and until his death in 2004, Ronald Reagan resided in a Bel Air house at 666 St. Cloud Road. Shortly after moving in, his wife, Nancy, had the number changed to 668. ٠ In 2004, some Rome, Ga., moviegoers were outraged when they discovered 666 printed on their tickets for a showing of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Management explained that it was a prefix for a series of numbers that a computer randomly assigned. ٠ When added together, the numbers on a roulette table (1 to 36) total 666. ٠ In the movie "Pulp Fiction," the number was the code used to open a briefcase. ٠ In Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera" the famous chandelier is lot 666 in the opening auction. ٠ The first Apple computer, Apple I, had an official list price of $666. ٠ The book "Unexplained! Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences & Puzzling Physical Phenomena" by Jerome Clark has 666 pages. ٠ When Intel introduced the 666 MHz Pentium III in 1999, they decided to market it as the Pentium III 667 claiming that since the actual speed was 666.666 MHz, therefore 667 was the more accurate approximation.

٠ The sum of the squares of the first 7 primes is 666: 2² + 3² + 5² + 7² + 11² + 13² + 17² = 666

But despite dire warnings from the Bible, conspiracy theorists and Iron Maiden about the beastly nature of "666", numerologists really love this number. Six is about the energy of co-operation, love and beauty. Then if you add six, six and six, you get 18, which then adds up to nine. Nine is the most spiritual number - it contains the energy of all the other numbers. So there's nothing to be afraid of - nine is the number of the soul and there's nothing in any way that's sinister about it.