7.2.5  Numerology

Numerology is assigning numerical values to the letters in words and names, and deducing various mystical relationships between relevant coinciding event, often associated with astrology and similar paranormal arts. As we mentioned in section 1.2, Jabir Ibn Hayyan framed his alchemical experiments in an elaborate numerology based on the names of substances in the Arabic language. This practice dates back to the Pythagoreans, who believed that the cosmos is based on numerical relationships. Many skeptics, however, regard numerology as superstition and pseudoscience that uses numbers to give the subject a veneer of scientific authority.

There are various numerological systems in different languages, such as the Abjad in Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, and Greek alphabet numerals. There are also many different methods of interpretation, including Chaldean, Pythagorean, Hebraic, Helyn Hitchcock’s method, Phonetic, Japanese, Arabic and Indian. This practice is known as Gematria, Science of Cipher, or Science of Alphabet.

The Arabic Abjad notation includes the 28 letters assigned numerical values:

Table 7.4: The numerical values of the Arabic alphabet according to the Abjad system. The letters in each next column are multiplied by 10 from the previous column, which indicates a connection with dimensions.

As we noted in chapters IV and VI, these letters are connected with the twenty-eight mansions of the Moon, and can notice some correlations between the letters and the four fundamental interactions and the twenty-eight elementary particles and anti-particles in the Standard Model, because of the similar symmetries. For example, there are the four vowels and accents that allow each of these letters to be pronounced in various manners, which may correspond to the four fundamental forces, while many of the other consonants are grouped in pairs in some ways, and trios in other ways, making a total of twenty-four, just like the main twelve fermions which become also twenty-four since each one has an anti-particle partner. We can also clearly notice from the numerical values in Table 7.2 that there are three main “generations” of letters similar to the three generations in the Standard Model, whose energies or masses differ in many multiples just as the values of these letters are multiplied by ten as we move to the next column.

For example, the three generations of the electron: electron, muon, and tau, have masses:MeV,MeV, andMeV, respectively. Although the differences are not identical, but they suggest some relation to the dimensions, especially that we explained in chapter V how the fundamental interactions are directly related to the dimensions of space.

Ibn al-Arabi spend many long chapters in the Meccan Revelations and other books on this subject that requires a more dedicated research.

In physics, some numerological observations can be inspired from obvious patterns in the fundamental constants or ratios with some resemblance, as had been noticed by Paul Dirac, Hermann Weyl and Arthur Eddington. For example, the ratio of the age of the Universe to the atomic unit of time, the number of electrons in the Universe, and the difference in strengths between gravity and the electric force for the electron and proton, all seem to be not simple coincidence. Wolfgang Pauli was also fascinated by the appearance of certain numbers in physics, including the fine structure constant which is approximately equal to. James Gilson has constructed a Quantum Theory of Gravity based loosely on Dirac’s large number hypothesis

When the atomic triads were discovered, they were considered a form of numerology, and they ultimately led to the construction of the periodic table, where the elements differ by their atomic weight.

In 1937, Dirac noticed the relating ratios of size scales in the Universe to that of force scales. The ratios constitute very large, dimensionless numbers: some 40 orders of magnitude in the present cosmological epoch. According to Dirac’s large numbers hypothesis, the apparent similarity of these ratios might not be a mere coincidence but instead could imply a cosmology with these unusual features. For example, the strength of gravity, as represented by the gravitational constant, is inversely proportional to the age of the Universe:, The mass of the Universe is proportional to the square of the Universe’s age:.

In 1916, Sommerfeld introduced the fine-structure constant, which is a fundamental physical constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction between elementary charged particles. The definition reflects the relationship betweenand the elementary charge, which equals, which is a dimensionless quantity.

Other equivalent definitions ofin terms of other fundamental physical constants are:, where:is the elementary charge;is the reduced Planck constant;is the speed of light in vacuum;is the electric constant or permittivity of free space;is the magnetic constant or permeability of free space;is the Coulomb constant;is the von Klitzing constant;is the vacuum impedance or impedance of free space.

The anthropic principle is a controversial argument of why the fine-structure constant has the value it does: stable matter, and therefore life and intelligent beings, could not exist if its value were much different. For instance, wereto change by 4%, stellar fusion would not produce carbon, so that carbon-based life would be impossible. Ifis larger than, stellar fusion would be impossible and no place in the Universe would be warm enough for life as we know it.

As a dimensionless constant which does not seem to be directly related to any mathematical constant, the fine-structure constant has long fascinated physicists. Attempts to find a mathematical basis for this dimensionless constant have continued up to the present time. However, no numerological explanation has ever been accepted by the community.