Monday Open Thread; August 14 is Social Security's Birthday

August 14 is the 226th day of the year. There are 139 days left.

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Today's number is 14

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14 is the product of 2 primes, 7 and 2

Alrighty. If 14 = 7 x 2, then x/14 = x/(7x2). As we learned in last Monday's Open Thread, fractions of the form x/7 where x is a whole number not a multiple of 7 or 999,999 have an interesting property. For any even numerator x, x/14 will factor down to (x/2)/7, so even fractions of the form x/14 have the same interesting property. Interestingly enough, heh, for odd numerators, x/14 has a variant of that property.

Briefly, the fractional part of x/7 is the number sequence 142857 repeated endlessly in that order from a varying but determinable starting point within that series. Thus 1/7 = 0.142857142857..., 2/7 = 0.2857142857..., 3/7 = 0.42857142857..., etc. 2/14 = 1/7 = 0.142857, etc. When x/14 has an odd numerator, the 142857 repeat kicks in, but not necessarily in mid series as it does with x/7. Instead, 1/14, for example = 0.071428571... and 3/14 = 0.214285714..., 5/14 = 0.357142857... etc.

14 is the atomic number of silicon

There are 14 days in a fortnight. I suspect that there are also 14 nights in a fortnight.

Cambrian animals of the genus Hallucinogenia (wikiCommons picture) had 14 legs.                                                                                

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And then there's Willy the Shakes and his pentameters

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Title 14 of the US Code is COAST GUARD.

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14 BCE was the Year of the Consulship of Crassus and Lentulus. Claudia Pulchra was born. She became the 3rd wife of Publius Quinctilius Varus. (Yep, that Varus again.)

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14 CE was the Year of the Consulship of Pompeius and Appuleius. On August 19, Caesar Augustus died. He was succeeded by Tiberius on September 18. He was also declared to be a god, but I don't know the date. Being a god was easier then - just die with a lot of fans. Augustus' grandson, Postumus Agrippa, was slain by his own guards on August 20, but that isn't why he was named Posthumus.

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On this day in:

1040  King Duncan I fell in battle against Macbeth 1720  The Villasur military expedition was wiped out by Pawnee and Otoe 1842  Many Seminole were forced to move from Florida to Oklahoma. 1901  The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead 1912  U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua 1935  FDR signed the Social Security Act 1941  Churchill and FDR signed the Atlantic Charter 1945  The Viet Minh launched the August Revolution against the French colonial government 1967  The UK outlawed participation in offshore pirate radio 1975  The Rocky Horror Picture Show opened in London 1980  Walensa leds strikes at Gdansk shipyards 2003  A major electrical blackout hit the northeast US and Canada. 2013  Egyptian security forces killed hundreds of pro-Morsi demonstrators 2015  The US Embassy in Havana re-opened after 54 years

Born this day in:

1530  Giambattista Benedetti, mathematician and physicist 1642  Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, high toned jackass 1714  Claude Joseph Vernet, painter 1777  Hans Christian Orsted, physicist and chemist 1840  Richard von Krafft-Ebing, professional voyeur, wrote Psychopathia Sexualis 1848  Margaret Lindsay Huggins, astronomer 1851  Doc Holliday, dentist, gambler, gunman 1912  Frank Oppenheimer, physicist 1926  Buddy Greco, singer and pianist 1940  Darrell "Dash" Crofts, singer, songwriter, musician 1941  David Crosby, singer, songwriter and guitarist 1942  Willie Dunn, singer and songwriter 1947  Maddy Prior, singer for Steeleye Span 1947  Danielle Steel, author 1950  Gary Larson, cartoonist

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Died this day in:

1870  David Farragut, admiral 1890  Michael J. McGivney, priest, founded the homophobic Knights of Columbus, candidate for sainthood 1951  William Randolph Hearst, yellow journalist, pushed to outlaw pot 1956  Bertolt Brecht, poet, playwright, director 1988  Roy Buchanan, singer, songwriter and guitarist 1988  Enzo Ferrari 2004  Czeslaw Milosz, novelist, essayist, and poet

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Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days and such:                                           Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland (Abkhazia)

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1912 US Invasion of Nicaragua Rocky Horror Havana Embassy Kraft-Ebbing Buddy Greco Darrell Crofts David Crosby Willie Dunn Maddy Prior Bertolt Brecht Roy Buchanan

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1912 US Invasion of Nicaragua

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Rocky Horror

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Havana Embassy: and yet they persevered

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Kraft-Ebbing

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Buddy Greco

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Darrell Crofts

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David Crosby

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Willie Dunn

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Maddy Prior

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Bertolt Brecht

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Roy Buchanan

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Bonus:

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Crossposted from http://caucus99percent.com