29.12.08

Roll the dice thrice...


Lots of things come in threes - The Holy Trinity...The Three Stooges...The Matrix Trilogy...the LOTR trilogy (although I think they may have actually been 6 books)...The Triple Gem...there's even a website that looks at threes right here.

I wonder why is that? Pairs are expected - ying and yang, man and woman, good and bad. For every reaction there's an equal and opposite reaction. It's easy to explain two. It's easy to understand the rationale behind two.

Perhaps three comes from triangles and how three is somehow stronger than two. You can never make a shape with just 2 points. You could never get a table to stand for very long on just two legs. There would never have been 'Tiga Sekawan' and a story to unite the three main races in Malaysia. And don't even get me started on 'Ménage à trois'.

And what's with three times lucky? Or three's a charm? Why is it lucky? Why is it a charm? Is there some magic in the number three that makes the third go better? Which is really strange because the probability of one in three is much less than the probability of one in two. So it might make sense to hedge your bets and cut your losses.

And why on earth am I spending time wondering about threes?

2 comments:

Minah Melayu said...

OMG!!! you haven't written for ages... and i decided to go for a holiday with no access to internet and you decide to splurge!!

so much to catch up with...

hope you had a good 'deserving' Christmas break! and New Year will be good :)

xx

NinJaMoo said...

Heyya couz, hope you had a good holiday!! =) I really need to drop in on your blog ;P

I can't wait to another long weekend...

*hugs*