:: Numerology Advisor ::

I’m sure many of you have come across the Wikipedia website before but have you looked up Numerology on there ? I was pleasantly surprised to find an in depth look at the subject (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology). Many aspects are looked at including Particular Numbers, Digit summing, Numerological divination, Postmodern critique, Numerology and astrology etc. Here’s their offering on ‘Numerology in science’ :-

“Scientific theories are sometimes labelled ‘numerology’ if their primary inspiration appears to be mathematical rather than scientific. This colloquial use of the word ‘numerology’ is quite common within the scientific community and it is mostly used to dismiss a theory as questionable science.

The best known example of ‘numerology’ in science involves the co-incidental resemblance of certain large numbers that intrigued for example such eminent mathematical physicists as Dirac, Weyl and Eddington. These numerical co-incidences refer to such quantities as the ratio of the age of the universe to the atomic unit of time, the number of electrons in the universe, and the difference in strengths between gravity and the electric force for the electron and proton. As one author has observed however , we are bound to find co-incidences if we look long enough at any sample of numbers and therefore the kind of study that Dirac, Weyl and Eddington pursued ’seems like numerology’ to many physicists (’Is the Universe Fine Tuned for Us?’, Stenger V.J. page 3[1]).

Large number co-incidences still continue to fascinate many mathematical physicists even at the risk of being labelled ‘numerologists’. Thus for instance James G. Gilson has constructed a ‘Quantum Theory of Gravity’ based loosely on Dirac’s large number hypothesis (see Gilson’s web page, about one third down the page[2]).”