ten things i didn't know about the number 3 until now

1. Tripoli - the capital city of Libya - literally means 'three cities' in Greek.
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2. In base 10, a natural number is divisible by three if the sum of its digits is divisible by 3.
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3. Three is the number of the famous NASCAR stock car that Dale Earnhardt drove for nearly 20 years before his death in 2001. He won 6 out of his 7 championships while driving the #3 car. No one has driven the 3 car since his death.
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4. In leet - a form of written slang/cipher used on the Internet - the number 3 is used to substitute for the letter E.
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5. Plato split his utopian city into three populations: laborers, guardians (warriors), and philosophers (rulers).
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6. The number 3 is often used as a literary device to provoke a feeling of unnaturalness, as twos are much more common in nature (limbs, hemispheres, eyes, etc). For eg. the aliens and their machines in War of the Worlds (2005) have features recurring in threes: eyes, legs, fingers, etc.
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7. Trinacra (a symbol consisting of three bent human legs) serves as both, a symbol of Sicily and an alternate name for the city.
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8. Three Mile Island - the site of the worst nuclear disaster on US soil - is so named because it is located 3 miles downriver from Middletown, Pennsylvania.
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9. The Rule of Three is a tenet of Wicca, which claims that whatever energy a person puts out into the world, be it positive or negative, it will be returned to that person three times.
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10. The Tsars of Russia considered Moscow as the Third Rome.
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[This post is a part of a blog project about the number 3.]

Comments

[Mary (MPJ)]

My 3-year-old consistently draws people with three fingers -- you have now made me suspect she is secretly using an artistic convention to make them seem unnatural.

[Listy Lists]

Don't forget the Holy Trinity: God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.