4 is the magic number

before i clue you in on 4 and why it’s the magic number, let me first digress a little bit and tell you about the river of 1,000 penises.

on my last full day in cambodia, i thought it would be a real gas to tour phnom kulen and explore the linga 1,000—a gushing stream which flows over hundreds of stone phalluses. the problem was that nobody wanted to go on the 2 hour drive with me to see such a marvel, “we don’t want to see 1,000 stone phalluses,” they said.

finally, i bumped into a german rugby player named otto who was receptive to my invitation. before he had a chance to second guess what he was signing up for, i hailed us a tuk-tuk and we were soon speeding down a 50 kilometer stretch of dirt road and screaming rugby hakas into the dust.

in the end, the stone phalluses weren’t really phallusy enough for either otto or i, though that is not the point of this post. the point of this post is to clue you into 4 and why it’s the magic number, and i’m getting to that.

we spent our time on the return voyage giving eachother puzzles to solve. i busted out this classic, which otto made short work of before i had really finished asking. then he told me about 4. “4 is the magic number,” he said. “5 is 4 and 4 is 4.”

“huh?”

“give me another number,” he said.

“6”

“6 is 3, 3 is 5, 5 is 4 and 4 is 4” he said. “give me another.”

“13”

“13 is 8, 8 is 5, and 5 is…”

“4 and 4 is 4. so every number can be reduced to 4 in some way? how about 4,032?” i said, ever the smartass.

otto rolled his eyes in his head as if under a voodoo jinx. a few seconds later: “4,032 is 21, 21 is 9, 9 is 4 and 4 is 4.”

“scrotumburgers,” i thought, “this is a grand puzzle.” by the time that we got back to homebase, i had cracked it, though the insidious mathematics behind the thing soon drove me to complete mania as i spent an 11 hour (11 is 6, 6 is 3, 3 is 5, 5 is 4, 4 is 4) plane ride from bangkok to rome haranguing 9 (9 is 4, 4 is 4) passengers about their thoughts on the puzzle and charting the output to a ridiculously obsessive degree. that story, the charts, and the answer to how 4 actually is the magic number, i shall reserve for tomorrow.