There won’t be more twos in the calendar for two hundred years. So today we take the unique opportunity to pay homage to the eternal number 2.
It is said that all good things come in threes. But a couple is also something beautiful. Much better actually than a trio. There’s always a fight that makes the famous third party happy. Of course, a duo will also fight, but it takes at least two to get something started. It takes opposites to create excitement: heaven and earth, day and night, Adam and Eve, to name just three couples without which life on this planet would no doubt be quite monotonous. And the fact that we have two hands, two feet, two eyes and ears and also one or the other organ in duplicate within us also speaks for the fact that two is a big number.
In nuclear physics, which is not necessarily associated with magic, 2 is even considered a magic number. Magical, because it ensures particularly stable atomic nuclei, so-called “magic nuclei”, from which predictions about no less magical “islands of stability” can be derived. This is now slightly shortened, but if you can put 2 and 2 together and sometimes even drop fives, you might feel an idea stirring deep inside that physics and magic are two sides of the same coin.
Speaking of medals, does it really always have to be first place? Didn’t a second winner also achieve great things? Anyway, what’s the point of all this talk that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression? Second chances are a dime a dozen! Ah, what natural numbers in the Fibonacci sequence! (By the way, two is the third number…) We’re lucky if we really get to know and maybe even appreciate a person who we found stupid the first time when we meet them a second time! If it’s the other way around, it doesn’t always have to be bad luck. Just as two is neither good nor evil: at the beginning of the 16th century, the scholar Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim described two as “the middle between good and evil, as having a share in both”.
The Torres Strait Islands are roughly halfway between Australia and Papua New Guinea. The people who live there only know the numbers 1 and 2. And are satisfied with calculating the numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6 from the two numbers – beyond the 6 there is only the number “many” for these primitive people. .
Speaking of a lot: In Agrippa’s world, the dove also lays two eggs, “from the first of which the male hatches and from the second the female”. City people will hate me for it, but let me say: Cheers to two!
With and on the 2 to happiness
The 2 is on my lottery ticket. In the back. At the end of the row of numbers with which my ticket takes part in the game 77 and in the Super 6 and in the lucky spiral. If I play along. I don’t always play, but when I do, it’s with this ticket that ends in 2. That’s how it turned out and it stays that way. It’s a bit like my grandfather Alfred, who never pressed the next button on the slot machine because he didn’t want to spoil luck while playing.
To be honest, the 2 hasn’t brought me so much luck so far that I absolutely have to keep it. It is rather the case that I achieved the biggest lottery win of my life with a ticket whose lottery box began with a 1 and a 3, i.e. I deliberately left out the 2. It was a series of numbers that my parents had been typing for decades. The winnings corresponded exactly to the euro to the dentist’s bill that had been presented to me the day before. Then I could make my peace with the 1 and the 3 and concentrate fully on the 2. At some point she has to. The five to six digits in front of it would then also have to play along. Unfortunately there is no drawing on 2/22/22. Otherwise it would be easy.
Until the 2 makes me rich, I’ll continue to ride my two-wheeler. It’s better for the planet too. We only have one of these at the moment. (Thomas Stillbauer)
Two kinds of nonsense for sunny minds
Two is a beautiful number, but the most beautiful thing is two. More precisely: “The 2”. If you’ve ever heard the silly phrase “Sleep well in your bedstead” and if you can have a good laugh about something like that, then you’ve come to the right place. Well, maybe not about that one sentence, it’s not that great after all. But it was always like that, and if we didn’t have to laugh about it, from our young people’s point of view we were old or to blame or both.
“Die 2”, in English “The Persuaders!” (yes, with an exclamation mark), was a British crime series with a total of 24 episodes, 15 of which were broadcast by ZDF in 1972 for the first time in German dubbing. “The 2” was mainly Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, and that’s not bad either. But the best thing was the German translation by Rainer Brandt, because it turned the bizarre British plot into even more wonderful nonsense.
The two main characters are Roger Moore as Lord Brett Sinclair, a noble Briton and heir to millions, and Tony Curtis as Danny Wilde, an American socialite from the Bronx and oil millionaire. Somehow (how exactly, has the memory swallowed, please, that’s 50 years ago!) They are forced to solve unsolved criminal cases, and anyone who had seen the brave Erik Ode in “Der Kommissar” even once in those years learned now finally, that thrillers can also be done without German dead seriousness. Whereby the matter with the beer is meant literally – in the “Kommissar” people always drank properly.
Anyway: When “The 2” came, we sat nicely in front of the tube TV, mothers looking in yelled out and enjoyed the dubbed nonsense. We were just sunny minds back then, and a Tony Curtis, who says when parking wrongly “I always do it like that in front of ZDF” and likes to greet buddy Moore with “Helloluja”, in order to then “rinse the dust out of the sinuses” with alcohol. , put us in endless fits of laughter.
In those days we must have somehow considered the open staring of more or less blond women to be normal, we didn’t know any different.
It should be sufficient to explain that the second (!) German television has fulfilled its educational mission in the early years. For us, at least, it’s clear: Whoever thinks of the two, thinks best of “The Two”. More precisely: to “The 2”. (Stephan Lever)
About singing and ringing and the eternal number 2 in space
The number “2” and music – the connection is obvious. The word music has two syllables. There are two tones, a record has two sides, and so does an audio cassette. But even beyond that, you can’t avoid the “2”. After all, where would music history be without the numerous legendary duets and duets that are as old as music history itself?
Formative duos were Simon & Garfunkel, Roxette, Wham, Sonny & Cher, Al Bano & Romina Power, Tina & Ike Turner, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys. And of course Modern Talking, Milli Vanilli, Die Doofen and the Wildecker Herzbuben. Important from a Frankfurt perspective: Jam & Spoon, Snap! and the Rödelheim Hartreim project. The duets include Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy, whose 1967 song “Something Stupid” was re-written 34 years later by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman. Or “Endless love” by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross from 1981, which celebrated a comeback in 1994 by Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross. In other cases, real superstars came together: George Michael and Elton John, David Bowie and Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, Rihanna and Jay-Z – and of course David Hasselhoff and Blümchen. Some musicians and bands then had the 2 in their name: U2 is probably the most well-known, followed by 2Pac. In the 90s, the 2 was apparently particularly popular, band names like 2 Unlimited, 2-4 Family, K2 or Reel 2 real bear witness to this.
And also in some songs homage is paid to the 2. “We Both” by July, a hymn to friendship. Bill Withers sang “Just the Two of Us” in 1981, which Will Smith covered in 1998. Or “2 become 1” by the Spice Girls, “Stark wie Zwei” by Udo Lindenberg, “Two princes” by the Spin Doctors. But Blur’s “Song 2” still tops the list. It was 2 minutes and 2 seconds long, the 2nd song on the album Blur and the 2nd single from it, in the UK charts did the song land on? Exactly: 2nd place.
Let’s end the text with the probably rather unknown song “How does it feel” by the punk band Die Kassierer. No 2 in the title, no in the band name. But an interesting approach of the band from Wattenscheid. Because they ask the question, which is dealt with far too rarely, how it feels to be just Captain Kirk’s brother, i.e. number 2 in space. 5″ “I got 5 on it” and the “Jackson 5”. (Fabian Böker)
From endless tossing and turning
“Oh, 22022022! You’re the same from the back as from the front, oh 22-0-22-0-22!” The modified words of the Dada poet Kurt Schwitters get to the heart of the joy of this special sequence of numbers.
When math people see 02/20/2022, the dots blur and time stands still for 24 hours in a palindrome of numbers on the calendar. The prime number palindromes, i.e. 11, 101, 382 and their sisters, which – calculated from either side – can neither be divided by other numbers nor change their value, are enthroned above all numbers that are equally beautiful from both directions. Perhaps the most beautiful in the circle of nobles is 1000000000000066600000000000001 – which is also called “Belphegor’s prime number” after the demon of genius. And of course it is also a palindrome.
These are not to be confused with the Mirp number. They really exist and they are prime numbers like 13, 17, 37, which read backwards (Mirp – Prime!) result in another prime number, but with a different numerical value.
On the other hand, February 22, 2022 is almost a bit banal, but it has one great advantage: Even without studying mathematics, everyone can easily remember the date for wedding anniversaries. (Thomas Kaspar)
