17 May: 137

Today is the 137th day of the year. 10 things you might not know about the number 137:

1. Apparently the answer to life, the universe and everything might not be 42 after all. Physicist Richard Feynman reckoned the answer was 137. He called 137 "one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man". That's because it's the number of something called the fine-structure constant (1/137.03599913). This number represents the probability that an electron will absorb a photon. It relates to electromagnetism in the form of the charge of the electron, relativity in the form of the speed of light, and quantum mechanics in the form of Planck’s constant. If this number was even slightly different, according to Michael Brooks in New Scientist, "physics, chemistry, biochemistry would be totally different – and we might not be around to talk about it." In fact, Physicist Laurence Eaves says that if we want aliens to know there's intelligent life on Earth the message we need to send is 137.
2. 137 was also the number at which a theoretical periodic table would have to stop, also according to Feynman. The undiscovered element with that atomic number is called untriseptium.
3. Physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychotherapist Carl Jung bonded over the number 137 and together set out to find the meaning of 137 in science, medieval alchemy, dream interpretation, and the I Ching. Arthur I. Miller wrote a book about their friendship called 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession.
4. Towards the end of his life, Wolfgang Pauli was admitted to a hospital room numbered 137 which he declared was an unsettling coincidence. He was right – he later died in that room.
5. The Hebrew word for Kabbalah has the numeric value of 137. It also relates to the positioning of the veil to the Holy of Holies, in other words, at the boundary line of the physical world. Coincidence? You decide.
6. There are 137 atoms in a chlorophyll molecule. Chlorophyll is the substance which makes photosynthesis happen and is therefore essential to all life on Earth. Another coincidence?
7. The most common age at which people died in the Bible is 137 – three individuals died at that age: Ishmael, Levi and Amram.
8. Psalm 137 in the Bible is the one which begins "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." Which was used as the basis of a Rastafarian song written and recorded by Jamaican reggae group The Melodians in 1970. Most people will be more familiar, however, with the 1978 cover version by Boney M.
9. Cesium_137 is an American synthpop musical group which takes its name from a radioactive isotope.
10. In numerology, 137 is a co-operative number relating to team work and diplomacy, and working together to reach a goal. Yet it can be independent and make decisions by itself when necessary. It is creative, optimistic and tolerant and has a wide range of interests including both scientific and spiritual subjects.

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