Mystery of the No.21

On 24th March, Prime minister of India Mr Narendra Modi ordered nationwide lockdown for 21days. The step is taken to fight coronavirus in the country. However, the number of cases is not that high country, the decision is taken more as a precautionary measure. This decision is a recent example in which number 21 over any other number, there are lots of things in which we use number 21. From being ideal age of maturity to the legal age for practising many rights wide usage of number has given rise to ques why not 22 or 23 or any other number, why this number is so important? Is their special value attach to it.

Below we will try to understand the significance of this number by discussing some of the interesting theories given by many scientist, numerologist, and religious literature.

Repetitive Mention of No.21 in the Bible 

 Usage of no.21 is not a new trend, In Bible, number 21 is used 7 times, the word angel is pronounced 21 times by Jesus and the words Flood and star are used 21 times in the Bible.

There is mention of lots of events in the Bible which are somehow connected to this number. Like Jesus, In the same day, appears in 21 different places to confirm in His Resurrection for those who believe in Him.

This significance of the number is not restricted to one religion in many other religious kinds of literature including jews literature there is mention of 21 leaves that contain the alchemical book of Abraham. So this number is considered as one of the holy numbers across the world.

The 21-day habit theory 

This theory was first introduced by Plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz, In the 1950s respectively. He during his active years as a surgeon he started observing strange behaviour in his patients, that it takes a minimum 21 days to create or change any habit. These experience prompted him to think about his own adjustment periods and adopting new behaviour.

After Maltz there is a number of psychologists who believes in this 21-day habit theory and claimed that this theory really works, the 21-day duration is the ideal duration for somehow who is looking for a change after that brain start adapting change and it becomes the new reality for our mind.

Fibonacci sequence

In Fibonacci sequence each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, these numbers are named after Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa who later known as Fibonacci.

So Beginning of the sequence is :

0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89 and so on

These numbers appear so often in mathematics that the entire journal deals with its studies and techniques.

These Fibonacci number is often referred as a magical number because of its mysteries presence all around in the environment, many scientists claim that there is a more natural value attached to it, these numbers appear in branches of trees, leaves arrangement on a stem, or flower petals.

These numbers were introduced in European mathematics in 1202 A.D through Fibonacci's famous work 'Libera Abachi'. Although great Indian mathematician 'Pingala' mentioned about the similar sequence in his work dated back around 200BC. These numbers are highly related to the golden ratio: Binet' formula which implies that the ratio of two sequential Fibonacci numbers tends to the golden ratio as n increases.

As it is clear from above that it has some biological strings attach to it, maybe our brain work in such fashion .21 is a Fibonacci number this could be a potential answer for the common question why brain chooses this number so often and over any other number near it. Like planets did not decide that they want to grow in such manner but it happens naturally. So there are high chances that we don't decide to choose it after giving it great thought but it's happening as it happens with other things in the domain.

There are some questions which cannot be addressed with a single answer, the mystery of number 21's usage and its significance is one of them. It cannot be proved either common usage of number 21 is just a bare coincidence or something deeper than that, from numerologist to psychologist everyone has accepted special value of this number but no one has a clear factual answer to prove their theories. Many people who used this number believe in its magic. Maybe the reason behind using this number is not singular but a mixed bag or maybe there is something which we ultimately don't know.