Friday the 13th, Part Two

Thirteen is one of the least favorite numbers in the world. People just loathe and fear it. And they get to use a cool Greek term to justify their irrational hatred: triskaidekaphobia (triss – kye – decka – phobia). There's more: Even though it signifies the end of the working week, people seem to have a thing about Fridays too. It has something to do with Friday being the sixth day of the week, or being named after the Norse goddess of marriage, or something like that.

Whatever it is, when a Friday the Thirteenth rolls around, people seem quite worried. And this year, they have to worry about it three times: 2009's first Friday the 13th was last month. And because February was exactly four weeks long, we get another Friday 13th this month too. Today! And when November rolls around, we’ll get yet another.

This is enough to scare the faint-hearted, but we can’t quite see why. They throw around all kinds of rationalizations to make their fear sound rational—including some of the following.

“There were thirteen people at the last supper, and Judas was the 13th person to be seated.” “Twelve’s a really cool number that’s all over our clocks, calendars, and rulers, and thirteen’s just trying to one-up it.” “Jesus was crucified on a Friday.” “Thirteen’s a prime number, and you can’t trust them.” “I was thirteen once and I didn’t like it a bit.”

We believe that’s all bunk, and we can cite a prominent number expert to debunk it. Paging Professor Pythagoras…white courtesy telephone, please! Ancient Greece’s most prominent numbers man had nothing bad to say about 13 at all. Oh, no. He reserved all his hatred for the number 2. He hated 2 with a passion. Two’s nearest neighbors were treated to rivulets of Pythagoras’s purple prose: One was unity, a whole, godlike in its singularity. Three was harmony, and four was perfection—the first square. But two signified opposing unities—diversity—which to Pythagoras meant disorder, strife, evil, and chaos.

So why do we bring this up? To prove that you can create a bad rap for any number if you think hard enough about it.

Sadly, people seem to think pretty hard about Friday 13th, and it actually makes it unlucky for them. Sixteen years ago, the Mid-Downs Health Authority did a study to see whether Friday 13th had any effect on the health and behaviour of people in West Sussex, England. On Friday 6th and Friday 13th of the same month, they counted vehicles on the road, shoppers in supermarkets, and hospital admissions due to accidents.

On the 13th, traffic rates were down. Shoppers were shopping at the same rate. And road traffic accidents requiring hospital admissions spiked 52 percent. That’s despite fewer cars being on the road. One conclusion: Friday 13th is unlucky for some. Another conclusion: People were so wigged out by driving on Friday 13th, they got into accidents.

Our favorite conclusion: Just don’t go driving in the South Thames region on a Friday. You never know what will happen.