In praise of the Number 3
Over the years I've come to suspect that 3 might be very special.
It's obviously critical for the Collatz Conjecture and also for Conway's Life Autonoma.
But things go much further. When you study elementary particle physics the number 3 keeps popping up. In fact it was 2^3 that led Gell-Mann to propose the eightfold way and thus the 3 symmetry of quarks.
In the Standard Model elementary particles are arranged in families. There are 3 families. And some deep laws of physics suggests there cannot be more than 3.
And the color force that binds quarks together to make protons has 3 charges, whimsically called R, G and B.
Of course we live in a world with 3 spatial dimensions.
Gravity between 2 objects is easy to calculate, but introduce just 1 more object and the situation becomes impossible to solve.
Our eyes use tri-color vision.
Tech Notes:
Content written and posted by Ken Abbott abbottsystems@gmail.com