The Quality of Numbers 1-31 by Wolfgang Held

Author:Wolfgang Held [Wolfgang Held]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780863159701
Publisher: Floris Books
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

16. Ordering the World

Life is breathing order.

Order is remembered love.

Peter Horton (Austrian singer and musician), Die zweite Saite (‘The Second String’)

A hand-breadth is the width of four fingers, and four hand-breadths correspond to the length of the foot. Thus 16 fingers make one foot. In ancient Rome as in Greece, a system of measures was based on this. This also seems to be why in all Romance languages each number up to 16 has its own name, with compound names starting only from 17: in French seize (16) is followed by the two-number dix-sept (17); and in Italian sedici (16) is likewise followed by the compound diciasette (17).

What is the mathematical quality of 16? It is the first square of a square: 2 × 2 = 4 and 4 × 4 = 16. By squaring numbers a distance becomes an area. Whereas a distance only possesses length without breadth, and can therefore only be understood in one dimension, an area extends both lengthwise and breadthwise.

Four is therefore more earthly than two, and 16 more earthly than four. This may be the underlying reason for 16 as foot-based measuring system, since this number has a particular relationship to earthly conditions. Of course there are other numbers that are squares of squares: 81 (3 × 3) × (3 × 3) is the next, followed by 256 (4 × 4) × (4 × 4). But only in the case of 16 can number and power be interchanged (42 = 24 = 16). In the case of 81 this isn’t possible, for 34 gives 81, whereas changing the numbers round to 43 gives 64.

Sixteen – like twelve – shows a special kind of perfection, which is why it was used in ancient cultures as an index measure. In spatial terms the 16 division can be found in the compass rose, with directions passing, for example, from south to southsoutheast to southeast to east-southeast, etc. As time measure, too, 16 forms a whole composed of 16 parts: a simple melody – such as most children’s songs (like Ba-Ba Black Sheep) – lasts for four bars, each of which has four beats. In the classical Indian rhythm of tintal, one finds this in still purer form, with 16 beats in a bar.

In India, until 1957, the rupee was divided into 16 annas; and in the Indian Vedas it is said that the human being is formed of 16 parts. The ancient Indian divinity Pussa was pictured as having 16 arms.

Sixteen is also to be found in European culture. The Greek doctrine of the four elements of earth, water, air and fire was expanded in Rosicrucian alchemical teachings into the 16 so-called philosophic elements, by connecting each of the four elements with the others; as in: the fire of earth, the fire of water, the fire of air, the fire of fire etc.

Such a spiritual or philosophical way of perceiving the spirit in nature is no doubt hard to understand today. But most people probably have a

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