The power of 3

My mom always believed that events happened in threes. She did not believe that all events happened in packets of three but when there were two related events, and then she believed a third would follow. They tended to be on the gloomy side, like air crashes and earthquakes but also lighter things like lucky happenings, pregnancies within the family and the like. I used to joke with her when a 4th likewise event occurred in a row; she just said it’s the start of the second sequence of three.

So then you think about speeches and you see the power of the triplet. So many people’s speeches use them. At it’s simplest, it is something like, ‘We shall fight, fight and fight again!’ Then look at the structure of a good speech or presentation. I don’t know who first said it but it has stuck in my mind ever since. First, you tell them what you are going to say (that is, outline the structure.) Second, tell them (for that is the body of your message). Thirdly, tell them what you have said (this is the summary aimed to implant the key points in the mind of the listener.)

Of course like all rules, they can be even better when broken imaginatively and no example is better than Churchill’s ‘we shall fight on the beaches speech.’

And on that note, let’s go the Rule of thirds for pictures and photography. Read somewhere that the Greeks came up with this when looking at the Golden Section which you can research for yourself. Basically, the argument goes that you should split your pic up into thirds by dropping lines down at 1/3rd and 2/3rds. Then you do the same horizontally and if you place the subject at any of the intersections, you’ll get an aesthetically pleasing picture. Well you do but when you ignore this rule you get two outcomes: shite or drama. (The camera makers know all about this which is why many cameras give you the option of overlaying the grid on your viewing screen.)

The triangle is quite pleasing for it has given us the pyramids.

Then you have the Holy Trinity. Never got to grips with this 3 in 1 business.

Moving on to mathematics or geometry to be specific. Plenty of rules regarding the bisection of angles but few on trisection. Think you can do 90 degrees and 72 degrees but the rest have defied mathematicians for centuries.

So let’s go on to divisibility.

Now divisibility by 2 is pretty obvious – if it’s even then you can do it. With 5, all you need is to end the number with a 5 or a zero. So what about 3’s? It’s actually very simple – if the sum of the digits of a number is divisible by 3 then so is the whole number. Try it with things like 171. Easy innit? 1+7+1 is 9 which is divisible by 3 but then so is 171 – result 37.