Stats and Friday the 13th

I don't know about you, but I personally couldn't care less about Friday the 13th. Yet, for many superstitious souls that combination of day and date means either good or bad luck. To me, it's just like another day and I can only tell you that it will occurs at least once, but at most three times a year.

Another interesting rule of thumb is that the 13th day of any month will fall on a Friday as long as that month begins on a Sunday. In 2009 this applies to the months of February, March, and November; the good news is that, after today, we'll be done and the entire system should be flushed of anything extremely bad (or great) for the rest of this year. For those of you that are already worried about the next time we'll get three Friday the 13th, don't worry, it won't be until 2012. I don't know why some individuals consider that combination lucky, but can tell you why most think the contrary; it's simply an overlap of two old superstitions: One that thirteen is an unlucky number and another that Friday is an unlucky day.

While in numerology, the number twelve is considered a “perfect” number, (twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve hours of the clock, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve gods of Olympus, etc.,) thirteen is viewed as being odd, irregular and transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the participants.

As for Friday, it's been considered unlucky since the Canterbury Tales, and many occupations have regarded that day as the wrong time to undertake new projects or even travel. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s and finally, Friday's terrible reputation was sealed the day Jesus was crucified. Now, good luck if you can make sense of all this silly data...