Prime
Roving Eye: The power of 10
Do you have a favourite number? This is quite a difficult question to answer because, let’s face it, there are an awful lot of numbers to choose from. Starting from number one, you can go through thirteen trillion (which just happens to be the number of dollars comprising the USA national debt) towards infinity.
Thirteen trillion may be the favourite number of an American financier, but my favourite is much smaller – it is the number 10.
My attachment to ten came about during my childhood, perhaps because my birthday falls on the tenth day of the month.
And talking of birthdays, I remember being thrilled when I progressed from nine years to ten years i.e from a one digit age to a two digit one. To my immature brain, it seemed to me a more important milestone than when I later became a teenager at thirteen years.
And have you ever stopped to think what a special place the number ten has in our lives? Let’s, in no particular order, identify some areas where ten crops up.
lThe 10 Commandments are considered a cornerstone of Judaism and Christianity. The nine Commandments or the eleven commandments doesn’t have quite the same ring about it!
lWe have 10 fingers (digits) from which the decimal system is said to originate. Decimal comes from the Latin for ten (decus), as does decade (ten years).
l10 is the basis of the metric system, (in which all multiples and divisions of the base units are factors of the power of ten). And how much simpler all forms of measurement are as a result.
lMany famous footballers have worn the number 10 shirt like Messi, Pele and Maradona.
lThe British Prime Minister lives at 10 Downing Street, often just referred to as “Number 10”.
And so the ten list goes on, but let me finish with one occasion when 10 was definitely not my favourite number. I was lying in bed on the morning of 24 September 1986, waiting to hear the previous night’s Liverpool V Fulham League Cup result.
“Shock result from Anfield” said the radio announcer! I thought my beloved (then 3rd Division) Fulham had pulled off a surprise victory, until the announcer continued, “Liverpool 10 Fulham 0”. It was the biggest ever victory by a team in the League Cup and for a few hours at least, my favourite ten number was relegated from its normal top spot! ot – a manhole with its cover missing!
