What's the Fascination With Number 23?
So what's this all really mean? It's hard to say, though 3.29 percent of each year's days has 23 in the date, so there's a lot of opportunity for births, deaths, accidents and other memorable events to occur on those days. And as Daniel Gilbert explains in this 2010 New York Times article, there are plenty of other seemingly magic numbers. It could all be mere happenstance.
Or maybe it's more. Some coincidences, after all, can be meaningful. Research indicates that people commonly interpret coincidences as signals to look for hidden causes, according to Dr. Bernard Beitman, a psychiatrist who is founder of the field of Coincidence Studies, and author of the book "Connecting With Coincidence: The New Science for Using Synchronicity and Serendipity in Your Life."
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"A baby cries and the mother comes. Coincidence! Maybe there is a connection," Beitman explained in an email. "The baby learns that crying brings her mother to her. Some people overdo the search for explanation of coincidences and others underdo. I think you have to overdo and then analyze, since somewhere among those pebbles might be a gold nugget."
However, "when it comes to numbers like 23, I don't know," he said.
But even Dr. Beitman, as it turns out, has a 23 connection. "Twenty-three was my football number and seemed to follow along with me for many years. It served as a comforter and supporter. And then disappeared."
Now That's Interesting
Dr. Beitman notes that it's possible for two things to be meaningfully related without a common cause. "Absolutely! That is the statisticians' favorite approach to coincidences," he explained. "The two elements come together randomly and people then make up meaning. This black and white approach to explanation misses the gray in between. Sometimes low probability coincidences do have a common cause."