If we’re lucky in the Opinion section, we work through our beliefs completely and support them with great arguments. But sometimes, we don’t need a deeper reason or great explanation to hold our convictions. Rapid Fire is for those short takes that can be explained in just a few sentences — no more justification needed.
The Opinion Section likes to joke around sometimes, what’s so wrong with that? And there’s been no set of jokes in recent months as funny as a certain set of numbers that need no explanation. Yet, those two infamous digits are hardly the only funny number out there. So, in today’s Rapid Fire, the Opinion Section will give their answers to the question: What do you think the funniest number is?
Tomas Hinckley, Opinion Editor: I have nothing to contribute to this question, I just want the record to show that I was absent from work the day we decided to publish this. Let my name not be stained by this silliness.
Patrick Minnerly, Associate Opinion Editor: I’m going a little out of the box here, but I consider the googolplex to be the funniest number, simply because it has the silliest name. I can get behind a million. I can get behind a billion. Even trillions and quadrillions don’t faze me. But the name of the googolplex just makes me laugh. Also, it can’t be physically written out without using scientific notation, and there’s something ironically funny about a number you can hardly quantify.
Colin Hamilton, Contributor: Funny numbers come, and funny numbers go, but few have stayed lodged in our cultural memory like 5,318,008. Over the decades, it has consistently delivered the same cheap laugh. Simply punch it into a calculator, flip it over, and there it is: pure, unfiltered potty humor. Generations of kids have discovered this joke, sniggering in their math classes as they pass the joke down like a rite of passage. Even today, in the age of internet memes and fast-lived gags, 5,318,008 stands tall as the original “funny number.” For that, it deserves the crown.
Bonnibel Lilith Rampertab, Contributor: What’s 9 plus 10? You’d be a fool to say it’s 19. It’s actually 21. There were rumors of that kid dying in the news, but that’s fake (so far). He lives in our collective unconscious regardless. I see him in my dreams. I hope the kid turned young adult at this point is doing well. Honorable mention: fans of the video game remixing channel on YouTube SiIvaGunner will remember that during “King for Another Day 2” there was a certain funny number on the Jazz Cats’ stage: 7. Grand dad? “Flintstones?” The Internet was never the same again.
Tamara Segal, Contributor: While they’re not exactly one number, I think the triplets “7-8-9,” the stars of the seven-ate-nine joke, are most deserving of this honor because of their sheer timelessness. Many numbers that are considered funny nowadays have no rhyme or reason, and they only serve a specific population or generation. While I appreciate a good nonsensical laugh, there’s something special about a joke anyone can get behind. I mean, try explaining 67 to your grandma. But 7-8-9 is always there for you. I think even Shakespeare would have laughed, and that’s beautiful.