Number Seven - Study and Superb Facts

The series of numbers that stretches till infinity is simply magical! Numbers manifest themselves in various forms. They have gained importance in history in the form of important dates. School history is filled with dates of important wars, births, deaths and movements that revolutionized the world. 

Numbers are a part of geography when it comes to latitudes, longitudes, heights and depths of landmasses and water bodies. In science, numbers appear in chemical formula in chemistry, measurements in physics and with various life forms in biology. Numbers continue their pursuit throughout college years and eventually become a part of daily life. In fact life itself is about counting, be it counting on people, counting bucks, counting days and counting years. 

In this long-lasting system of counting, we come across interesting facts about different numbers. Some numbers repeat, some never appear while some follow a certain pattern throughout our life. The number seven is one of those magical numbers, which continue to interest the masses. Let us look at some interesting facts about the number seven.

Seven in Math

• Seven has the highest probability of occurring as an addition when rolling dice.
• The number seven is the fourth prime number as also a Mersenne prime, the first Woodall prime, the fourth factorial prime, the second lucky and the second safe prime.
• Seven is the only number below 15 that cannot be represented as a sum of the squares of three integers. Wondering all other numbers can be represented

Interesting Facts

• There are seven wonders of the ancient world.
• There are seven continents in the world.
• There are seven colors of the rainbow. Their names are famously abbreviated as 'vibgyor'.
• There are seven days in a week.
• One of the most interesting facts about the number seven is its correlation with the cognitive abilities of a human being. The limits of human cognitive capacity lie within the range of 7 plus or a minus 2.
• There are seven basic musical notes, namely, 'do', 're', 'me', 'fa', 'so', 'la' and 'te'. In Indian music they are 'sa', 're', 'ga', 'ma', 'pa', 'dha' and 'ni'.
• Felix Vasquez, an employee of the New York City Housing Authority was born on July 7, 1977. He was the winner of the New York's Bronze Medallion for his brave act of saving a three-week old child. He became famous in New York for this courageous feat and appeared in many television interviews.

Seven in Science and Technology

• A ladybug commonly has seven spots!
• Most of the mammals' necks have seven bones.
• The number of rows in the periodic table is seven.
• The neutral pH value that lies between acidity and alkalinity is seven.
• The code for international direct dial phone calls to Russia and Kazakhstan is seven. Seven is also the number of digits in an American or a Canadian telephone number.
• Digital devices use a seven-segment display.
• The OSI model has seven layers.
• There are seven logic gates namely, NOT, NOR, XNOR, XOR, AND, NAND and OR.

Seven in Religion

• The Indian astronomy regards a constellation of seven stars as a group of its seven prominent saints. It denotes this constellation by the name, 'saptarishi mandalam'.
• Seven is also the number of stars in the constellation, Big Dipper.
• The number of celestial bodies visible to the naked eye is seven. The stellar objects visible to naked eyes are the Sun, the Moon and the five planets namely, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Earth is a stellar body but since we are on it, it is 'invisible' in the 'sky'.
• The roman number seven, VII signifies the seventh discovered satellite of a planet.
• In Christianity, the number seven has been made significant by the Seven Joys of Virgin Mary, the Seven Sorrows of Virgin Mary, the Seven Corporal and the Seven Spiritual Acts of Mercy of Roman Catholic. The number seven appears in the Seven last words of Jesus on the cross, the Seven Virtues and the Seven deadly sins.