Beyond Infinity

So, the other day, I was thinking about this 1-2-3 thing and how they add up to the number six, which is a number that will soon become important to this story. Six is such a ninja number, but it often gets a bad rap, probably because of its association with 666, or because of the phrase “six feet under,” meaning dead and buried. Or because all insects have six legs and a lot of people hate bugs. Six is the atomic number of carbon, which is a building block of the universe, or in this case, our code-breaking group. Six is the number of points on the Star of David, and day six is when God created Man. A six-sided object is a hexagon and those can be seen in a lot of crystals like the basalt columns at Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. I’m still fascinated that pretty much all snowflakes are based on the number six. And I definitely don’t want to leave out Six Flags amusement park.

Six is a great number. In fact, it’s perfect. I’m serious; it really is a perfect number—as defined by mathematicians. A perfect number is one where the sum of the positive factors (not including itself) equals the number. In this case, six can be divided by 1, 2 and 3. Add those together and the sum is equal to six.