WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.839 So if you open up a web browser right now, like 00:00:04.839 --> 00:00:07.179 right this second, and you type the number 27 00:00:07.179 --> 00:00:10.740 into an internet search bar and hit enter, the 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:13.750 server receiving your query. immediately faces 00:00:13.750 --> 00:00:16.809 this massive problem. Oh, absolutely. It's a 00:00:16.809 --> 00:00:19.390 huge crisis of context. Right. Because it has 00:00:19.390 --> 00:00:21.210 absolutely no idea what you actually want. I 00:00:21.210 --> 00:00:23.789 mean, are you a teenager searching for an emo 00:00:23.789 --> 00:00:26.289 punk song? Or maybe a chemist looking up the 00:00:26.289 --> 00:00:28.050 properties of a transition metal? Or someone 00:00:28.050 --> 00:00:30.350 trying to dial a phone number in Cape Town. Exactly. 00:00:30.589 --> 00:00:32.929 Or a theater student looking for a contemporary 00:00:32.929 --> 00:00:35.210 opera. The machine just sees a two and a seven. 00:00:35.450 --> 00:00:39.429 Yeah. Which is just raw data to a computer. It 00:00:39.429 --> 00:00:41.869 doesn't know how to parse the human intent behind 00:00:41.869 --> 00:00:44.250 that data. But, you know, that is exactly what 00:00:44.250 --> 00:00:46.369 we are going to untangle today by looking at 00:00:46.369 --> 00:00:49.670 a very specific, very unique source. Yes. Welcome 00:00:49.670 --> 00:00:52.049 to the Deep Dive. Our source material today isn't 00:00:52.049 --> 00:00:54.590 some dense, you know, 100 -page academic paper 00:00:54.590 --> 00:00:56.670 or a sprawling investigative article. We are 00:00:56.670 --> 00:00:59.429 looking at a single digital list. Just one Wikipedia 00:00:59.429 --> 00:01:02.189 disambiguation page. Right. The disambiguation 00:01:02.189 --> 00:01:05.090 page for the number 27. And the page itself defines 00:01:05.090 --> 00:01:08.680 27 in the most basic terms. possible. It says 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:11.420 it's the natural number following 26 and preceding 00:01:11.420 --> 00:01:14.640 28. Which is technically true. It is. But I mean, 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:16.760 typing this one seemingly mundane two -digit 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:19.799 number into a search bar opens up this bizarre 00:01:19.799 --> 00:01:23.980 and totally fascinating hub for human culture, 00:01:24.180 --> 00:01:27.980 art, science, and global infrastructure. Well, 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:30.000 what's fascinating here is that disambiguation 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:33.180 pages are, at their core, monuments to human 00:01:33.180 --> 00:01:35.719 ambiguity. Oh, I like that. Monuments to human 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:38.760 ambiguity. Yeah, because the entire architecture 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:41.760 of Wikipedia is designed to organize facts cleanly, 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.040 to put things in neat little boxes. But a page 00:01:44.040 --> 00:01:45.980 like this proves that the human experience is 00:01:45.980 --> 00:01:48.739 inherently messy. So messy. And this isn't isolated 00:01:48.739 --> 00:01:51.280 to just the English -speaking world either. The 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:53.760 source actually notes that this exact disambiguation 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:57.459 page exists in 21 different languages. Wow, 21. 00:01:57.819 --> 00:02:00.959 Which means that from Arabic to Japanese, from 00:02:00.959 --> 00:02:04.239 Polish to Urdu to Tagalog, humans all over the 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.099 planet are just trying to untangle the meaning 00:02:06.099 --> 00:02:08.560 of this one specific number. Exactly, it's a 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:10.800 global phenomenon. Okay, let's unpack this because 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:13.819 if we look at where this integer has arguably 00:02:13.819 --> 00:02:16.419 the largest cultural footprint on the page, we 00:02:16.419 --> 00:02:18.300 really have to start with music. Oh, for sure. 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:20.500 Music is a huge part of this. Right. So we have 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:22.479 the 27 Club, which, you know, the page lists 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.099 as artists who died at the age of 27, but it 00:02:25.099 --> 00:02:27.360 doesn't stop there. It just spirals out into 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:30.699 bands, albums and songs across entirely different 00:02:30.699 --> 00:02:33.530 decades. And like... wildly different genres. 00:02:33.770 --> 00:02:35.650 It's the cross section of genres that really 00:02:35.650 --> 00:02:38.689 stands out to me. You have an American rock band 00:02:38.689 --> 00:02:40.610 from Boston, Massachusetts that simply called 00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:43.610 themselves 27. Just 20 seconds. Yeah. And then 00:02:43.610 --> 00:02:46.050 you look at the album titles. There is a 2012 00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:50.030 album by Ciro y las Persas, then a 2013 album 00:02:50.030 --> 00:02:53.719 by Conter. An EP by the K -pop artist Kim Sung 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:57.580 Kyu from 2015 and an album by Falls from 2017 00:02:57.580 --> 00:03:01.080 and all of them are titled Just 27. Just the 00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:02.800 number and you know if you look at the track 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.099 list they are just as wild. I mean the Scottish 00:03:05.099 --> 00:03:08.479 rock band Biffy Clairo has a song titled 27 from 00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:12.780 2002. Oh wow, 2002. Yeah. And Fallout Boy has 00:03:12.780 --> 00:03:16.479 one on their 2008 album Foliado. Tidal Fight 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:18.939 has one from their album Shed in 2011. Machine 00:03:18.939 --> 00:03:22.439 Gun Kelly put a song called 27 on his 2017 album 00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:25.479 Bloom. It just keeps going. It really does. Going 00:03:25.479 --> 00:03:27.919 back even further, the punk band Lag Wagon has 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:31.460 a track spelled out as 27 on their 1997 album 00:03:31.560 --> 00:03:34.360 double platinum. Looking at all this, it's almost 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:36.740 like the number 27 has become the music industry's 00:03:36.740 --> 00:03:39.400 universal shorthand for coming of age or some 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:41.680 sort of crisis. Sonic rite of passage, essentially. 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:44.699 Exactly, a sonic rite of passage. But I have 00:03:44.699 --> 00:03:48.120 to ask you, why do artists from completely different 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:50.939 musical universes use just the number itself 00:03:50.939 --> 00:03:54.180 as a title instead of spelling out the actual 00:03:54.180 --> 00:03:56.370 emotion they are feeling? Well, I think we have 00:03:56.370 --> 00:03:58.710 to look at how loaded symbols operate in culture. 00:03:59.030 --> 00:04:02.050 Music relies heavily on mythos. Right. So the 00:04:02.050 --> 00:04:04.409 27 Club, that tragic grouping of really iconic 00:04:04.409 --> 00:04:06.310 musicians who all happened to pass away at that 00:04:06.310 --> 00:04:09.330 specific age, it has infused a basic integer 00:04:09.330 --> 00:04:11.650 with an enormous amount of inherent drama. It 00:04:11.650 --> 00:04:13.870 comes with all this baggage. Exactly. So if a 00:04:13.870 --> 00:04:16.850 pop punk band like Fallout Boy, which is a genre 00:04:16.850 --> 00:04:19.550 known for incredibly long, emotionally on -the 00:04:19.550 --> 00:04:22.649 -nose song titles, strips a track title down 00:04:22.649 --> 00:04:26.129 to just 27, they are pulling a rhetorical trick. 00:04:26.290 --> 00:04:27.930 Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, they don't have to 00:04:27.930 --> 00:04:30.209 explain the angst in the title. The number itself 00:04:30.209 --> 00:04:32.370 does all the heavy lifting for them. It acts 00:04:32.370 --> 00:04:35.019 as an anchor, but... I mean, it must function 00:04:35.019 --> 00:04:36.800 differently for someone like Kim Sung Kyu, right? 00:04:36.939 --> 00:04:39.339 Because K -pop is an industry known for intense 00:04:39.339 --> 00:04:43.279 polish and, like, highly produced concepts. So 00:04:43.279 --> 00:04:46.319 dropping an EP named after your exact age feels 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:48.720 like it strips away a lot of that gloss. But 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:51.120 see, that is the power of the symbol. Whether 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:54.560 you are a punk band in 1997 or a Nigerian hip 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.920 -hop artist like False in 2017, naming a project 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:01.060 27 signals a very specific emotional weight. 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:02.899 They're tapping into that same thing. Exactly. 00:05:02.939 --> 00:05:04.899 You are borrowing the cultural gravity of the 00:05:04.899 --> 00:05:07.279 27 Club to tell the listener, you know, I am 00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:10.240 at a crossroads. It's this brilliant artistic 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:12.800 forehand that translates across borders without 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:15.100 needing any actual translation. Yeah, you don't 00:05:15.100 --> 00:05:16.720 even need to speak the language to feel what 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:19.959 they're trying to say. But this desire to use 00:05:19.959 --> 00:05:23.819 the number as a philosophical anchor, it isn't 00:05:23.819 --> 00:05:26.779 limited to musicians hiding behind a sonic mythos. 00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:29.160 Not at all. If we transition over to the visual 00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:31.959 and theatrical arts, creators use this exact 00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:34.899 same integer. The source material lists an entire 00:05:34.899 --> 00:05:38.040 opera, titled 27. Right. Created by Ricky and 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:41.819 Gordon and Royce Vavrec in 2014. Yeah. And there's 00:05:41.819 --> 00:05:44.560 a 2011 play written by Abbi Morgan called 27. 00:05:45.019 --> 00:05:48.279 Fast forward a bit to 2023. And Flora Anabuda 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:50.819 releases a French -Hungarian animated short film 00:05:50.819 --> 00:05:53.910 titled 27. There is even an American street artist 00:05:53.910 --> 00:05:56.949 named Deuce Seven, who goes simply by 27. Which 00:05:56.949 --> 00:05:59.089 is just so fascinating. The transition from the 00:05:59.089 --> 00:06:01.290 auditory realm to the physical and visual spaces 00:06:01.290 --> 00:06:03.529 highlights a completely different utility for 00:06:03.529 --> 00:06:06.029 the number. It does. In music, it points toward 00:06:06.029 --> 00:06:08.410 a specific tragedy or, like we said, a coming 00:06:08.410 --> 00:06:11.329 -of -age crisis. But on a stage or screen, it 00:06:11.329 --> 00:06:13.129 functions quite differently. And here's where 00:06:13.129 --> 00:06:15.850 it gets really interesting to me. If the whole 00:06:15.850 --> 00:06:18.459 point of a title whether it's an opera or your 00:06:18.459 --> 00:06:21.319 own moniker as a street muralist, is to communicate 00:06:21.319 --> 00:06:23.759 your story to the public. Isn't calling your 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:27.339 2023 French -Hungarian animated film just 2720? 00:06:27.819 --> 00:06:30.519 The ultimate act of making your audience work 00:06:30.519 --> 00:06:32.860 for the meaning. It really is. It's like handing 00:06:32.860 --> 00:06:35.339 the audience a completely blank canvas. It feels, 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:38.139 I don't know, like a defiant choice. It is a 00:06:38.139 --> 00:06:40.540 blank canvas philosophically, but we also have 00:06:40.540 --> 00:06:44.279 to consider the reality of the digital age. Naming 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:47.579 your art a generic two -digit number is an absolute 00:06:47.579 --> 00:06:50.839 SEO nightmare. Wow. Wait, really? Yeah. Think 00:06:50.839 --> 00:06:53.339 about it. You are actively fighting the discovery 00:06:53.339 --> 00:06:55.699 algorithm. If someone searches for your French 00:06:55.699 --> 00:06:58.220 -Hungarian animated film, they are going to get 00:06:58.220 --> 00:07:01.199 math equations, highways, and K -pop albums way 00:07:01.199 --> 00:07:03.160 before they find your movie. I hadn't even thought 00:07:03.160 --> 00:07:04.800 about that. You are essentially guaranteeing 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:07.000 that nobody can stumble onto your work by accident. 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:09.959 Exactly. Which means the choice to use that title 00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:13.399 is deeply, purposefully intentional. And this 00:07:13.399 --> 00:07:15.800 is where the tension of the Wikipedia page really 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:18.800 shines. Yeah, because the entire purpose of a 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:21.740 disambiguation database is to remove ambiguity. 00:07:22.350 --> 00:07:25.290 It desperately wants to categorize Abby Morgan's 00:07:25.290 --> 00:07:28.709 play and Ricky Ian Gordon's opera into neat searchable 00:07:28.709 --> 00:07:32.550 boxes. But the artists chose those titles precisely 00:07:32.550 --> 00:07:35.290 to create ambiguity. Exactly. They don't want 00:07:35.290 --> 00:07:37.170 to hand the audience a neatly packaged moral. 00:07:37.550 --> 00:07:39.589 They are using the number as an empty vessel, 00:07:40.170 --> 00:07:42.550 essentially forcing you to project your own context 00:07:42.550 --> 00:07:45.170 onto their work. It's a tug of war. The database 00:07:45.170 --> 00:07:48.050 is like desperately trying to solve a puzzle 00:07:48.050 --> 00:07:50.949 that the artists purposefully designed to be 00:07:50.949 --> 00:07:54.180 unsolvable. The database wants clarity, but the 00:07:54.180 --> 00:07:57.019 artist demands participation. I love that. But 00:07:57.019 --> 00:07:59.220 just when you think 27 is entirely subjective, 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:01.519 you know, that it's all about emotion, blank 00:08:01.519 --> 00:08:03.959 canvases, and defying search algorithms, the 00:08:03.959 --> 00:08:06.319 disambiguation page takes a massive pivot. A 00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:08.800 very sharp turn. Yeah, we move out of the subjective 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:12.060 world of art and hit the rigid, completely objective 00:08:12.060 --> 00:08:14.120 reality of the hard sciences and technology. 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:15.899 It's like the number 27 lives a double life. 00:08:16.019 --> 00:08:18.199 It really does. In the art world, it's wearing 00:08:18.199 --> 00:08:20.620 a leather jacket, being cryptic and mysterious. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:23.620 But in the sciences, it puts on a lab coat and 00:08:23.620 --> 00:08:26.939 a hard hat. Here, it isn't a metaphor. It's a 00:08:26.939 --> 00:08:28.980 structural necessity. And if we connect this 00:08:28.980 --> 00:08:32.019 to the bigger picture, the contrast is staggering. 00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:34.559 Look at the science section of the page. Cobalt 00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:36.799 is a transition metal on the periodic table, 00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:40.779 and it is defined by the number 27. In the artistic 00:08:40.779 --> 00:08:43.419 realm, a title is a label you can just peel off 00:08:43.419 --> 00:08:46.559 and change. But in chemistry, the number is the 00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:48.580 recipe. Because of the protons, right? Right. 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:51.799 Cobalt has exactly 27 protons in its nucleus. 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:55.100 That integer literally dictates the physical 00:08:55.100 --> 00:08:57.899 properties of the element. If it had 26 protons, 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:00.840 it would be iron. Wow. The universe itself relies 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:03.740 on that specific integer to organize matter. 00:09:04.019 --> 00:09:06.399 And if you look up into the sky, it's the numerical 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:08.679 designation for an asteroid in the asteroid belt 00:09:08.679 --> 00:09:12.399 called 27UTERP. Exactly. So without 27, we literally 00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:15.320 don't have the metal cobalt and we lose a fundamental 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:18.200 coordinate in our solar system. And that structural 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:21.120 rigidity extends directly into the human built 00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:24.100 digital world as well. The page notes that in 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:26.379 computing, the apostrophe character is encoded 00:09:26.379 --> 00:09:32.000 in URLs as percent 27, which references EIA 608. 00:09:32.179 --> 00:09:33.879 OK, wait, let's slow down. How does that actually 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:36.539 work mechanically? Why does an apostrophe need 00:09:36.539 --> 00:09:39.690 to be a number? Well, computers rely on syntax 00:09:39.690 --> 00:09:42.190 to understand web addresses. Certain characters, 00:09:42.409 --> 00:09:45.330 like spaces or apostrophes, can break a URL string 00:09:45.330 --> 00:09:47.389 because the system misinterprets them as the 00:09:47.389 --> 00:09:49.529 end of a command. Oh, so it thinks the web address 00:09:49.529 --> 00:09:51.809 is finished before it actually is. Right. So 00:09:51.809 --> 00:09:54.269 to prevent the entire web link from shattering, 00:09:54.710 --> 00:09:57.490 the system translates the apostrophe into hexadecimal 00:09:57.490 --> 00:09:59.409 code, which is a format the computer can safely 00:09:59.409 --> 00:10:02.049 process. And that hexadecimal equivalent happens 00:10:02.049 --> 00:10:06.029 to be 27. So without percent 27, any web address 00:10:06.029 --> 00:10:07.870 with a basic piece of punctuation would just 00:10:07.870 --> 00:10:09.629 return a broken error page. Exactly. It would 00:10:09.629 --> 00:10:13.730 just fail. That is wild. And the page also lists 00:10:13.730 --> 00:10:16.750 global infrastructure. Plus 27 is the international 00:10:16.750 --> 00:10:18.509 calling code for the entire country of South 00:10:18.509 --> 00:10:21.250 Africa. Which really grounds this ambiguity in 00:10:21.250 --> 00:10:24.590 actual human bureaucracy. The International Telecommunication 00:10:24.590 --> 00:10:26.549 Union had to figure out how to route phone calls 00:10:26.549 --> 00:10:29.070 across the planet, so they divided the world 00:10:29.070 --> 00:10:32.649 into geographic zones. Zone 2 is Africa, and 00:10:32.649 --> 00:10:35.070 then the 7 narrows the routing down specifically 00:10:35.070 --> 00:10:38.009 to South Africa. It is a literal gateway system. 00:10:38.289 --> 00:10:40.710 That is the ultimate contrast, isn't it? The 00:10:40.710 --> 00:10:43.669 exact same sequence of digits, a 2 and a 7, that 00:10:43.669 --> 00:10:45.809 dials a phone across the ocean to Cape Town, 00:10:45.970 --> 00:10:48.429 is the exact same sequence holding together the 00:10:48.429 --> 00:10:50.409 code for an apostrophe in your internet browser. 00:10:50.549 --> 00:10:55.360 It really is. 27 isn't a mood or a ghost story. 00:10:55.659 --> 00:10:58.539 It is a load -bearing pillar. If you remove it, 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:00.860 the system collapses. Right. The call doesn't 00:11:00.860 --> 00:11:02.899 connect. The webpage breaks. And the periodic 00:11:02.899 --> 00:11:05.220 table has a literal hole in it. Exactly. Oh, 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:07.879 and the page also categorizes time itself. It 00:11:07.879 --> 00:11:12.919 lists the years 27 BC, AD 27, 1927, and 2027. 00:11:13.460 --> 00:11:15.740 We use it to pin human history to a timeline. 00:11:15.980 --> 00:11:17.960 We really demand that numbers do an incredible 00:11:17.960 --> 00:11:20.120 amount of heavy lifting for us. We do. I mean, 00:11:20.340 --> 00:11:22.779 they have to serve as our emotional shorthand, 00:11:23.259 --> 00:11:25.720 our artistic blank slates, our chemical building 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:28.299 blocks, and our digital glue. Which brings us 00:11:28.299 --> 00:11:31.320 to the final and maybe the most meta part of 00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:33.440 this source material. The structure of the page 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:36.799 itself. Yes. After listing out all these bands, 00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:39.539 Nigerian hip -hop albums, asteroids, and telecom 00:11:39.539 --> 00:11:42.500 codes, the Wikipedia page pulls back the curtain 00:11:42.500 --> 00:11:45.000 to look at how humanity attempts to organize 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:47.600 this massive collision of meanings. Right. At 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:51.259 the bottom, it directs users to type 27 disambiguation 00:11:51.259 --> 00:11:54.059 and a list of highways number 27. But the most 00:11:54.059 --> 00:11:56.080 telling part is the broader category it falls 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:59.379 under, lists of ambiguous numbers. That phrasing 00:11:59.379 --> 00:12:02.299 is just perfect. It really is. So what does this 00:12:02.299 --> 00:12:04.690 all mean? We started this deep dive by asking 00:12:04.690 --> 00:12:07.230 you to imagine an internet user typing 27 into 00:12:07.230 --> 00:12:09.870 a search bar. And the server panicking. Right. 00:12:10.070 --> 00:12:11.950 The computer has no idea if they're a historian 00:12:11.950 --> 00:12:14.629 looking for an ancient Roman year like 27 BC, 00:12:15.129 --> 00:12:18.110 an emo kid looking for a fallout boy track, or 00:12:18.110 --> 00:12:20.769 a civil engineer looking for a highway. So isn't 00:12:20.769 --> 00:12:23.029 the very existence of this page the ultimate 00:12:23.029 --> 00:12:25.429 proof that human context is the only thing that 00:12:25.429 --> 00:12:27.799 actually gives data its meaning? I think so. 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:30.179 It highlights a really critical issue with how 00:12:30.179 --> 00:12:33.460 we navigate the digital age. We are living through 00:12:33.460 --> 00:12:37.580 an era of just unprecedented information overload. 00:12:38.120 --> 00:12:41.629 We have access to basically unlimited data. But 00:12:41.629 --> 00:12:44.429 what a category like lists of ambiguous numbers 00:12:44.429 --> 00:12:47.490 demonstrates is that raw facts, like an integer, 00:12:47.710 --> 00:12:50.809 are completely useless without a human framework. 00:12:50.990 --> 00:12:53.590 Because the machine doesn't care. Exactly. A 00:12:53.590 --> 00:12:56.649 computer server can store the number 27 indefinitely, 00:12:56.710 --> 00:12:59.389 but it takes a human mind to care about whether 00:12:59.389 --> 00:13:02.210 that 27 represents a tragically young deceased 00:13:02.210 --> 00:13:05.450 musician or a chunk of rock floating in space. 00:13:05.690 --> 00:13:07.950 The number is just the shell. We provide the 00:13:07.950 --> 00:13:09.629 ghost. Oh, that is a great way to put it. We 00:13:09.629 --> 00:13:12.309 provide the ghost. We need these elaborate disambiguation 00:13:12.309 --> 00:13:14.929 pages because human interests are wildly complex 00:13:14.929 --> 00:13:17.549 and constantly overlapping. So much overlap. 00:13:17.710 --> 00:13:19.330 Right. The fact that someone had to sit down 00:13:19.330 --> 00:13:21.850 and meticulously separate the elemental properties 00:13:21.850 --> 00:13:24.690 of cobalt from a lagwagon punk song from 1997 00:13:24.690 --> 00:13:28.070 is a testament to the messy tangled web of human 00:13:28.070 --> 00:13:30.350 curiosity. The computer doesn't know how to parse 00:13:30.350 --> 00:13:32.169 our multitudes, so we have to build maps for 00:13:32.169 --> 00:13:34.450 it. We contain multitudes, so we build the map. 00:13:35.019 --> 00:13:37.899 I love that. And it perfectly encapsulates this 00:13:37.899 --> 00:13:40.080 entire journey we went on today. It really does. 00:13:40.220 --> 00:13:42.179 We set out to look at the natural number following 00:13:42.179 --> 00:13:45.659 26 and preceding 28. But what we found was a 00:13:45.659 --> 00:13:49.720 masterclass in how humanity assigns meaning to 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:52.379 the mundane. A very complicated masterclass. 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:56.000 Yeah. We traced its path from the heavy, myth 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.019 -making sorrow of the 27 Club to the album titles 00:13:59.019 --> 00:14:02.659 of K -pop EPs. We watched it function as a defiant 00:14:02.659 --> 00:14:05.500 algorithm -breaking blank canvas for operas and 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:07.919 animated films. And then the hard sciences. Right. 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:09.860 We saw it strap on a hard hat to dictate the 00:14:09.860 --> 00:14:12.340 protons and cobalt, hold together our internet 00:14:12.340 --> 00:14:15.600 URLs with percent 27, and act as the geographic 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:18.000 gateway to the nation of South Africa. It manages 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:20.799 to be both deeply emotional and strictly elemental 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:23.580 at the exact same time. So the next time you 00:14:23.580 --> 00:14:26.090 are out in the world... and you see a seemingly 00:14:26.090 --> 00:14:29.769 boring random number, whether it's the total 00:14:29.769 --> 00:14:32.169 on a grocery receipt, a speed limit sign, or 00:14:32.169 --> 00:14:34.750 just a date on a calendar, take a second to look 00:14:34.750 --> 00:14:37.529 closely at it. Give it some context. Yeah. Remember 00:14:37.529 --> 00:14:39.990 that it isn't just a cold, hard boundary for 00:14:39.990 --> 00:14:43.330 a math problem. It is likely a gateway. It's 00:14:43.330 --> 00:14:45.909 a single point of entry into a dozen different 00:14:45.909 --> 00:14:49.230 universes of human endeavor, art, and science. 00:14:49.309 --> 00:14:52.029 You know, it makes me think. Imagine a future 00:14:52.029 --> 00:14:54.649 civilization, thousands and thousands of years 00:14:54.649 --> 00:14:57.470 from now, digging through the digital ruins of 00:14:57.470 --> 00:14:59.470 our internet. Oh, like digital archaeologists. 00:14:59.710 --> 00:15:02.129 Exactly. Imagine they uncover just this single 00:15:02.129 --> 00:15:05.730 Wikipedia disambiguation page for 27 and absolutely 00:15:05.730 --> 00:15:08.110 nothing else survived. Just this one list. Just 00:15:08.110 --> 00:15:10.149 this list. Looking at all these overlapping, 00:15:10.389 --> 00:15:12.870 seemingly disconnected entries from an asteroid 00:15:12.870 --> 00:15:15.649 called Uturpi to an emo punk song to a transition 00:15:15.649 --> 00:15:18.720 metal to an opera. Would they think 27 was just 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:21.200 a basic math concept? Would they think it was 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:24.320 some sort of global multilingual deity? Or would 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:26.899 they think it was the secret unifying password 00:15:26.899 --> 00:15:28.200 to our entire culture?