In the mid 1980s I was living in the beautiful Thameside town of Marlow, Bucks, with the first of my ill-fated wives and very young daughters. Our phone number was 0628 473951. Many years ago it occurred to me that the number was unusual in that each digit occurred only once. Yesterday it occurred to me that there were two other mathematical improbabilities relating to the number.

Firstly, the first five digits are all even numbers (zero being counted as an even number, being in the sequence -4, -2, 0, 2, 4), in 2012 the BBC posted a piece Is zero an even number? The last five digits are all odd numbers.

Secondly, let’s put the numbers into a vertical column, and separate the even numbers from the odd numbers:

0

6

2

8

4

---

7

3

9

5

1

If we wish to subtract successive numbers in both sets (even and odd numbers), we need to add a digit before some of the numbers, thus:

20

16

12

8

4

---

17

13

9

5

1

The final step. For both sets of numbers, subtract the second number from the first, the third from the second, and so on. In every instance the result is ‘4’.

Give me a day or two and I’ll have worked out what all of this has to do with men’s rights or feminism.

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.