Numerical Analysis of 2003 - Year of Jordan

As the year 2002 comes to an end many people will look back and remember the important events of the year that was. Not a bad idea, and I'm sure there is lots to remember, but I prefer to look ahead to 2003. Speculation seems more fun to me since you get to make it up yourself! Of course speculation is hard, so I intend to make only broad observations based on numerical analysis, and leave the application of these facts to the individual reader.

The first clue we have that the year 2003 will be special lies in the fact that 2003 is a prime number. Depending on weather or not you include 1 in the list of primes (see prime # faq's ) 2003 will be either the 304th or 305th prime year AD. The 304th seems most correct, but since there is some doubt I will refrain from pursuing this path. More importantly, it is critical to realize that prime years occur rather sporadically and the next prime years will be in 2011, 2017, and 2027. That represents a lot of composite years in between!

The first and most obvious observation for any true sports fan is that the year 2003 is equal to Michael Jordan's number (23) with two 0's inserted. It's interesting to point out that since Jordan has announced his final retirement after this season, 2003 will be the final year during which he plays professional basketball. Is it coincidence that the very thread of time seems to be honoring this greatest basketball player and sports super hero? Only further analysis will prove if this hypothesis is correct and shed light on the meaning of 2003.

To fully understand 2003 we must examine the number in all it's forms. To this point we have concerned ourselves only with the most common base 10 representation of 2003, but I will now look at the number in it's binary (base 2) representation.

The binary form of 2003 is 11111010011.

Summing these digits we get 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 = 8

The significance of this addition can not be overstated since 8 = 2³ bringing us back to the familiar 23 of Jordan. The binary form of 2003 seems to be supporting our claim for 2003 as the year of Jordan; possibly highlighting 2³ = 8, which is the number of times Jordan scored 50 or more points in the playoffs during his career (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/features/jordan/news/2001/08/22/btn_jordan/).

Another common way to represent numbers is in the hexadecimal (base 16) form.

In hex 2003 is represented as 7D3.

Summing these digits we get 7 + D + 3 = 23

Although highly unlikely it should hardly be surprising at this point to find that we have again arrived back at the familiar 23 of Jordan. Since the correlation of the hex form is so strong we must now examine 7D3 to see if there is any more meaning to be found in this number.

At this point our study becomes difficult because the meaning of 7D3 is not obvious at first glance. To continue we must think deeply on the number. In this deep thought you may find yourself murmuring the digits aloud 7 D 3 (The very digits that point to the 23 of Jordan). Follow this impulse and read the numbers aloud, 7 D 3... say it quickly and you get 73! We have established the number 73 as being important, but where does this lead? Again, the meaning is not obvious, so at this point we will turn to history to see if there are lessons to be learned.

The most recent 73 in history was 1973. It is difficult to know which event from 1973 to look at, but there is one that seems to stand out. On Nov 7, 1973 Congress passed the War Powers Act. This Act limits the President's authority to order military action by requiring him to receive approval from congress for any conflict exceeding 90 days. Military action against Iraq in 2003 seems to be a distinct possibility (probability?). The question of support for this conflict however extends beyond just congress to the global level. Approval is now being sought from the UN as the US ponders a conflict that seems more of a political struggle than a power struggle. What choices will the US make as a nation and how will we react to the support/criticism of the world?

Going back another hundred years we find the Coinage Act, passed on Feb 12, 1873. This act changed the US monetary standard from one based on both gold and silver, to a new standard based on gold alone. The economic implications of this act are quite interesting and provide a further link to the year 2003. In the years following the coinage act the global demand for gold rose at such a rate that the US money stock could not keep pace with the expanding economy. This had negative economic impacts and by the 1890's there was great debate about returning to a bimetallic (silver and gold) monetary standard. The popular novel (later made into a movie), The Wizard of Oz, was actually written as an allegory about this very debate. I will omit explaining much of the symbolism, but make one key point that in the story, Oz represents Washington, DC. The basketball team located in Washington DC is named the Washington Wizards, and when referring to this team in 2003 there can be no doubt that Michael Jordan is the "Wonderful Wizard" of the team. Jordan is the Wonderful Wizard of DC; the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

You may be thinking to yourself that I have way to much time on my hands. While I freely admit that this is indeed true, I assure you that I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! It's all true and verifiable. The numbers all point to power struggles, war, economic standards, and of course Michael Jordan in 2003. I can't suggest how all of this will play out, but I know the signs when I see them. The year of Michael Jordan is sure to be significant and I can only hope that it is played out with the leadership, wisdom and success of the athlete for whom it is named.

I'm sure that there is more analysis and connections to be made, but this is all I can manage for now. If you have more insights or evidence I would love to see the information.

Random Swear

I recently wrote a web interface at work that allows our software packagers to generate serial numbers online. The serial numbers contain a random 8 character sequence at the end which makes them unique. These 8 characters are made up of digits and characters (not including 1,0,5,i,l,o,s which might be confused). One of those serial numbers came in to support for activation today with the random sequence: NPFUCK4C

I hope the customer finds this as amusing as I do.

Last Show of the Last DJ

I went to the last show of Tom Petty's, Last DJ tour this Saturday. It was a good show. Tom Petty played a good long set, including a ton of his big hits and I'd say all the songs that you'd expect him to play. My only complaint is that it was in the Fleet center and I was sitting up in the balcony. Not that you can't see or hear from there, but it's just too far away and too big a venue for you to really feel involved. Tickets were reasonable though, so it was worth it to be able to see someone like Petty. You gotta give credit to a guy that's been goin strong since the 70's.

On my way home from the concert I was waiting for the train at North Station. The platform was packed with everyone who had just gotten out of the concert. All of a sudden this guy who was standing right behind me just passes out and flops down to the ground. I could hear a good solid thump as his head hit the ground. Someone was calling around for a doctor and another person was calling around for someone to dial 911. The person with the best reaction had kneeled down and was talking to the guy trying to get some response. Now I have gone through CPR training probably at least 5 times in my life. Admitedly the last time was 5 or 6 years ago, but I still feel like I should be ready to just jump right in. I was kind of frozen "deer in the headlights" style for 5 or 6 seconds, but I was really starting to kneel down and get ready to try and find a pulse. The guy came to before I got that far which was a relief because I really didn't want to be trying to do CPR! Maybe I will look for my old books and go over it though. 15 compressions to 2 breaths right?