personality quirks
Ooh, Look at the Pretty Numbers!
I’m a little OCD. Have I mentioned that before? Not to a degree that it interferes with my life, just noticeable in a few areas. Like when I leave my class with a substitute and everything’s out of place the next day—and that can be something as little as the books on a not-quite-full shelf being shoved to the right instead of the left. *shudder* Annoying.
As a math teacher, it’s only appropriate that one of my little quirks relates to numbers. Some are prettier than others. It’s not that I can’t function when “ugly” numbers come up. I just feel a little warm fuzzy when they’re pretty instead.
So, what are some of my “pretty” numbers? Palindromes are definitely way up there. Those are numbers that read the same forward and backward. When I look at a digital clock right when it’s 12:21 or 8:18? Love it. Catching when my odometer hits one? Love that, too.
Numbers that fall in order or in a pattern are nice, too. Speaking of my odometer, it recently passed 123,456 miles. (My car is well-loved.) That was awesome.
Then there’s my car stereo. The volume increments are pretty small, but anything much over 40 is usually permanent-damage-to-the-hearing range. Within the “safe” range, I get a little weird with settings that are and are not okay … and it has little to do with whether it’s loud or soft enough. In general, prime numbers = yuck. That means even numbers are mostly good, but something like 38 (a prime times two) isn’t as pretty as 35. Multiples of 5 are very pretty, as a rule. Multiples of 3 aren’t bad, either, which means 39 is slightly better than 38, but why not go the extra notch to 40, which is prettier than both combined?
I’m nuts. I know this.
Funny thing is, none of this matches what I mean by “pretty” and “ugly” numbers in my classroom. Rational numbers are pretty. Irrational numbers are ugly. Simple as that. If my students get a pretty answer, they know they should either write the exact decimal or the equivalent fraction. If they get an ugly answer, they should either round it appropriately, or leave it in square-root form (or as a multiple of pi, whatever applies).
I imagine that definition makes a lot more sense. But it doesn’t mean I’m not very much looking forward to twelve minutes after noon on December 12th of this year.
C’mon, guys, ‘fess up. What weird little quirks do you have that make you look just a little bit crazy?