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PETE WATTS: Well, the number
666 is pretty famous, or I
suppose you could
say infamous.
666 is called the number
of the beast.
And the reason that the number
666 has become infamous is not
just because it's some
kind of nice number.
It has got a lot of interesting
mathematical
properties.
JAMES GRIME: Perhaps
disappointingly,
mathematically 666--
not that special.
PETE WATTS: But it's famous
because of its use in the
Bible, where it is the
number of the beast.
Let me read the relevant
passage.
JAMES GRIME: The one thing that
I do know where it turns
up is in the game of roulette.
So roulette--
here's a roulette table.
This is the Monte Carlo
roulette table.
PETE WATTS: "Let him who has
understanding reckon the
number of the beast, for
it is a human number.
Its number is 666."
JAMES GRIME: There's an American
roulette table as
well, which is slightly
different.
The American table has a 0 and
a 00, whereas the Monte Carlo
roulette table just
has the one 0.
PETE WATTS: The New Testament--
the Bible wasn't
written in English.
This is just a translation.
So in the original Greek
manuscripts, the number is
actually written as
three letters.
The Greeks didn't have symbols
for writing numbers.
They use letters instead.
It's the same as if in English,
we had to use the
letter A for one, the letter
B for two, and so on.
Greek is like this.
It uses letters to represent
numbers.
Hebrew is like this.
Letters are used to
represent numbers.
And those are the two main
languages of the Bible.
JAMES GRIME: So all roulette
tables, though, use the
numbers 1 to 36.
So here, the Monte Carlo
roulette table has 37 slots--
0, 1, 2, 3, up to 36.
PETE WATTS: So alpha, the first
letter of the Greek
alphabet represents
the number one.
Beta, the second letter,
represents number two.
Gamma, the third letter,
represents number three.
Now, if we carried on like this,
we wouldn't be able to
form big numbers very easily.
So then, as we go on, the
letter iota comes
to represent 10.
Kappa is 20.
And then we've got to
now go to our 100's.
So rho, which is the equivalent
of our letter R,
represents 100.
Sigma, the next letter--
just like we go R, S, rho,
sigma in Greek--
200.
Now what this means is that
every word also has a
numerical value.
JAMES GRIME: The Monte Carlo
table was by a man called
Francois Blanc.
In fact, the first version of
roulette was invented by a
mathematician called Blaise
Pascal, a really early version
of the idea.
He's a brilliant French
mathematician--
really interesting life.
But the version I want to talk
about is the Monte Carlo
roulette table.
So Francois Blanc
invented this.
And they say that he made a deal
with the devil for the
secrets of roulette, because
the numbers of a roulette
table add up to 666.
PETE WATTS: So for example,
my name is Pete.
Pi--
famous mathematical symbol which
is the first letter of
my name, which would be 80,
so pi, P for Pete, 80.
Epsilon and E, that
would be 5.
Tau, a T, that would be 300.
And finally, another E, 5.
So the number of
my name is 390.
JAMES GRIME: It is just
a coincidence.
It's a nice little funny story
told by gamblers who have
perhaps suffered at the hands
of the roulette table.
666 then, if it is the sum of
consecutive numbers, 1 to 36,
that means it's also known
as a triangle number.
That's what a triangle
number is.
Let's have a look at those.
PETE WATTS: OK.
So in the Bible, the famous
number 666 comes in
Revelation, chapter 13.
"This calls for wisdom.
Let him who has understanding
reckon the number of the
beast, for it is
a human number.
Its number is 666."
Now, in English, this word
"reckon" actually comes from a
Greek word which means
calculate.
So it's almost like the text is
saying, I'm going to give
you a riddle.
You need to calculate the
number of the beast.
This number, 666, actually
relates to a name.
Now, in Greek, this is called
isopsephy, the idea that a
name can be a number as well,
or a number can be a name.
And in Hebrew thought, the same
idea is called gematria,
which actually relates to our
English word "geometry." It
has the same Greek origin.
Many people have seen the Book
of Revelation as directed
against the Roman Empire.
So when it comes to calculating
the number of the
beast, this evil figure within
the book, many of them presume
that this figure must be
something to do with the
Empire, and in particular, its
particularly evil leader Nero.
So the way that this is
calculated from the number 666
is to take the letters
of Nero Caesar.
But a slight complication is
that the letters are actually
written in Hebrew
and not Greek.
The reason for that is it's
often in Jewish thought, in
Hebrew thought, that the idea of
making letters and numbers,
or making names from numbers,
had some significance.
One way to write Nero Caesar
in Hebrew is like this.
Now, just like in Greek,
each letter
corresponded to a number.
The same is true in Hebrew.
So the first letter of the
Hebrew alphabet is alef.
So this corresponds
to number one.
Bet corresponds to number two.
And then we move into
our 10's as well.
So yod corresponds
to number 10.
Resh corresponds to 200.
So we have a very
similar system.
Both the Greeks and Hebrew
language used letters to
represent numbers.
So this says Nero Caesar
in Hebrew.
The nu, the N, is number 50.
The R, the resh, is 200.
Vav is 6.
Nu is 50.
Qoph is 100.
Samekh is 60.
And then resh is 200.
Now, if you add up all of
these, we come to 666.
So Nero Caesar, the name
Nero Caesar, has a
numerical value of 666.
Why is it spelt slightly
funnily?
We've got here N, R, the
equivalent of a N. So we've
got Neron Caesar.
The reason for that is that the
Greek way of writing Nero
Caesar was Neron Caesar.
I think this is the most
obvious explanation.
Partly because there are other
examples at the time in other
Hebrew and Greek text of
this kind of riddle.
The idea of a number
representing a name is
convincing because this Neron
Caesar, this particular
spelling, is in common use.
And also, John as an author uses
very Hebraic concepts.
He draws on a lot
of Hebrew ideas.
Some people argue that Greek
is his second language.
He thinks in Hebrew, but
he writes in Greek.
So he's imbued with
Hebrew ideas.
PETE WATTS: But also, it adds
to kind of the complexity of
it in terms of it being
a riddle, a secret.
So no one wants to write
a book under imperial
persecution saying the root of
all evil is Nero Caesar.
You're not going to
spell that out.
So this is kind of a way that
the number system of the time
uses a code to kind of protect
the author, protect the
recipients from an out
and out criticism.
JAMES GRIME: A triangle number,
then, can be written
like a triangle.
Here, I'm going to take some
dots and write them--
squeak--
in a triangle.
And you see, each row is
a different number.
So now I've got one,
two, three, four.
So the first triangle number--
it's just 1, on its own.
The second triangle number is
the first two rows there, so 1
plus 2, which is 3.
The third triangle number
is this triangle--
one, two, three--
which is 6.
The fourth triangle number is
that, and so on, and so on.
And the 36th triangle number--
so the very last row would
have 36 dots on it.
It would be the 36th
triangle number.
That is 666.
PETE WATTS: 666 has been used
to indicate virtually
anything, where anyone who's
been evil and evil, rude, or
so on, has been found to add
up somehow to the number of
666, using all sorts of bizarre
counting systems.
What generally happens is that
people take the English
alphabet, A to Z, and use the
numbers 1 to 26 to try and
come up with some code.
But you can see that that's
actually nothing like the
genuine way that Hebrew and
Greek use their numbers.
Because there, in Hebrew and
Greek, we get units, tens, and
hundreds whereas these codes
that tend to be made up these
days use just the number 1 to
26, A to Z. And then they
involve all sorts of bizarre
things like adding people's
middle names and so on to come
up with present-day figures.
JAMES GRIME: Of course,
we know about the
associations with 666.
But mathematically speaking,
it's not a particularly
interesting, exciting number
for its own sake.
It's more of a cultural,
important number.
PETE WATTS: What's very
interesting about this 666 is
that some manuscript, some other
early manuscripts from
the third century and so on,
actually have the number 616.
So the number of the beast
in these texts is 616.
Now, what's interesting is
that if you take off this
final N in Hebrew and
have just Nero
Caesar, that equals 616.
So in other words, people are
saying, I already know that
the answer is Nero Caesar, but
I'm not sure about how you
worked it out.
I'm going to correct
it, if you like.
I think the number
ought to be 616.
So in a way, that confirms that
they were thinking of
Nero Caesar, even from the
second, third century and so
on, really early on.
So that's a nice bit of evidence
that confirms that,
certainly among the early
Christians, the answer to this
riddle was Nero Caesar.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]