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From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 666 and Ignorant People
Message-ID: <10780@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Aug 90 17:26:35 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 564, Message 11 of 12

optilink!cramer@uunet.uu.net (Clayton Cramer) writes:

> In the first century A.D., there was a type of numerology called
> *geametria* (a corruption of the Greek word for geometry), in which the
> letters of the alphabet were assigned different numeric values, and the
> name of a person was calculated to a particular number.

	I don't know what this has to do with telecom anymore, but 19
centuries later, gemetria (the way I've always seen it spelled, but
who knows?) is still practiced.  Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet is
a number and number games are still played by Jews.  For example, when
I got married, various people sent me checks for $72 (I'm sure I'll
get corrected if I got the numbers wrong!).  The Hebrew word for life
adds up to 36, so 72 is two lives together.

	BTW, I grew up in 201-666.  To the best of my knowledge, I
have no tendencies towards being an ax murderer.


Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy