Six is a 'perfect number' - it's the sum of its divisors, 3, 2 and 1 - and it's favoured for that reason by Azarya Sheiner, a six-year-old mathematical genius who is the central attractor, but not the protagonist, of Rebecca Goldstein's new novel, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God. Twenty-eight is the next perfect number (divisors 14, 7, 4, 2, 1), and 28 arguments for the existence of God might have been more than enough. But 36 is a perfect number of perfect numbers: a perfect square, and it's twice 18, a deeply lucky number according to the Kabbalistic 'gematria' system of assigning numerical values to Hebrew letters (the letters of chai, the Hebrew for 'life', have a joint value of 18). There are in addition 36 tzadikim or righteous ones alive on earth at any time, according to Jewish mystical tradition, the Lamed Vavniks (lamed is the letter ?, numerical value 30, vav is the letter ?, numerical value 6). The world will come to an end, it's said, if their number ever drops below 36.

LRB 25 March 2010 | PDF Download