Among my favourite books is The World in Six Songs, by Daniel Levitin. I loved it so much I wrote a series of blog posts in 2009 about a songs challenge I came up with, and even got to talk to the author about it! Recently, I heard about scientific book involving the number six, called Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, by Martin Rees. This one didn’t interest me that much, with “deep forces” being beyond what I could fully understand, or at least be willing to commit the time to doing, seeing what those numbers were. Before I went to do that, though, I thought of the six numbers of “my universe”, as in a balance of the physical universe I knew and understood, as well as the emotional one that had the most meaning to me. I did it to see if I could hit at least one of those numbers in Just Six Numbers, to see if what I thought were the important numbers were truly as important as someone more knowledgeable of the “deep forces” of the universe deemed them to be. The results are below, but before you read on and maybe get influenced by my choices, try making a list of just six numbers in “your universe”, with “your universe” being whatever ways you want to define it.

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