(AP) In this photo provided by 20th Century Fox, Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) keeps a watchful eye... Full Image

Is Tuesday's date - 6-6-6 - merely a curious number or could it mean our number is up?

There's a devilishly odd nexus of theology, mathematics and commercialism on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year. OK, it's just the sixth year of this millennium, but insisting on calling it 2006 takes the devil-may-care fun out of calendar-gazing.

Something about the number 666 brings out the worry, the hope and even the humor in people, said the Rev. Felix Just, a professor of theology at the University of San Francisco. A Jesuit priest, Just has taught both apocalyptic theory and mathematics and maintains a "666-Numbers of the Beast" Web site that contains history, theology, math and precisely 66 one-line jokes about 666.

You can even make sport of it, betting online whether the apocalypse will happen on that date. The good news is that one online oddsmaker has made the world a 100,000-to-1 favorite to survive Tuesday - something that Just said is supported by theology.

"Many people avoid the number; they're afraid of it almost and there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of it," Just said. "It is not a prediction of future events. It is not supposed to be taken as a timetable for when the world is going to end."

It all started with Revelation 13:18 in the Bible: "This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six."

The beast is also known as the Antichrist, according to some apocalyptic theories.

Many scholars, such as Just, say the beast is really a coded reference - using Hebrew letters for numbers - for the despotic Roman emperor Nero and 616 appears instead of 666 in some ancient manuscripts. The Book of Revelation isn't prophesying a specific end of times but "is about the overall cosmic struggle of good versus evil," Just said.

But for some more apocalyptic theologians, the end of times is coming, even if not specifically on Tuesday. The evangelical Raptureready.com Web site puts its "rapture index" at 156, calling that "fasten your seatbelts" time.

It's not the date June 6 that's worrisome, but the signs in our society of the approach of the 666 antichrist, said the Rev. Tim LaHaye, founder of a self-named ministry and co-author of the best-selling "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic novels. And even though LaHaye said Tuesday isn't the date of the apocalypse, his Left Behind Web site promotes his new book "The Rapture" with an ominous "06.06.06 Will You Be Ready."

"I don't think that people understand that 666 is not a good time," LaHaye said. He said he sees signs of an upcoming "tribulation period" that leads to the Antichrist's arrival in a movement toward one-world government, a single economic system and single religion.

Apocalyptic culture and theology, especially those surrounding 666, "is especially appealing for people in an underdog situation," said Just (pronounced Yoost).

So people have looked for - and found - 666 in all sorts of places. Believers in the number's power have used biblical letter-numeric code to convert the names of countless political leaders, including many popes, to come out 666, marking them as that generation's Antichrist. That includes Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

It's a number that the Reagans didn't want as an address when they moved out of the White House in 1989 to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air. So they changed their address from 666 St. Cloud Road to 668. In 1980, a TV host and others rigged the number 666 to come up in a Pennsylvania lottery drawing. It's a number that is part of every UPC barcode on groceries (a coincidence according to the code's inventor). With biblical coding, 666 also is the number for the WWW of the World Wide Web.

The math of 666 is also open to biblical interpretation and manipulation. Just points out that 666 is the sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel. Other oddities include variations on pi and products of prime number multiplication.

There's also something special about the number 6, which in the Bible stands for man, said Brian C. Jones, a religion professor at Wartburg College in Iowa.

"People need to lighten up about this," Jones said. He noted that Tuesday has a more neutral reputation than other days, like dreaded Monday or bad-luck Friday the 13th.

But this Tuesday is a day to cash in on the number associated with the apocalypse. It will mark the debut for a remake of the classic 1970s horror film "The Omen," the publication of LaHaye's new "Left Behind" book, and an Ann Coulter polemic called "Godless: The Church of Liberalism."

And for truly cashing in, there's the nonsectarian online sports book, BetUS.com, which gives Earth a better than sporting chance. At 100,000-to-1 odds, if you bet the maximum $500 that the world will survive and it does, you win half a penny. If you bet $100 that the apocalypse happens and it does, you can earn a cool $10 million, but you might have a devil of a time collecting it. People are betting both ways, company spokesman Mike Foreman said.

Commercialism based on numbers and fear bothers American University astronomer Richard Berendzen.

"What it really does is use some coincidence of some numbers for commercial gain," he said. "It's superstition and money when it comes down to it. And that's about as satanic as you can get."

Still scared about the date 666? Jack Horkheimer of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium has a piece of advice: "If it really spooks you, you can stand on your head and it'll be 999."

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On the Net:

Rev. Felix Just's Numbers of the Beast 666 Web site:

http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/666.htm

Raptureready.com's rapture index: http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

Math fun with the numbers 666: http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mike666.htm

The Number of the Beast
Mike Keith

The number 666 is cool. Made famous by the Book of Revelation (Chapter 13, verse 18, to be exact), it has also been studied extensively by mathematicians because of its many interesting properties. Here is a compendium of mathematical facts about the number 666. Most of the well-known "chestnuts" are included, but many are relatively new and have not been published elsewhere.

The number 666 is a simple sum and difference of the first three 6th powers:

666 = 1⁶ - 2⁶ + 3⁶.

It is also equal to the sum of its digits plus the cubes of its digits:

666 = 6 + 6 + 6 + 6³ + 6³ + 6³.

There are only five other positive integers with this property. Exercise: find them, and prove they are the only ones!

666 is related to (6² + n²) in the following interesting ways:

666 = (6 + 6 + 6) · (6² + 1²)
666 = 6! · (6² + 1²) / (6² + 2²)

The sum of the squares of the first 7 primes is 666:

666 = 2² + 3² + 5² + 7² + 11² + 13² + 17²

The sum of the first 144 (= (6+6)·(6+6)) digits of pi is 666.

16661 is the first beastly palindromic prime, of the form 1[0...0]666[0...0]1. The next one after 16661 is

1000000000000066600000000000001

which can be written concisely using the notation 1 0₁₃ 666 0₁₃ 1, where the subscript tells how many consecutive zeros there are. Harvey Dubner determined that the first 7 numbers of this type have subscripts 0, 13, 42, 506, 608, 2472, and 2623 [see J. Rec. Math, 26(4)].

A very special kind of prime number [first mentioned to me by G. L. Honaker, Jr.] is a prime, p (that is, let's say, the kth prime number) in which the sum of the decimal digits of p is equal to the sum of the digits of k. The beastly palindromic prime number 16661 is such a number, since it is the 1928'th prime, and

1 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 1 = 1 + 9 + 2 + 8.

The triplet (216, 630, 666) is a Pythagorean triplet, as pointed out to me by Monte Zerger. This fact can be rewritten in the following nice form:

(6·6·6)² + (666 - 6·6)² = 666²

There are only two known Pythagorean triangles whose area is a repdigit number:

(3, 4, 5) with area 6
(693, 1924, 2045) with area 666666

It is not known whether there are any others, though a computer search has verified that there are none with area less than 10⁴⁰. [see J. Rec. Math, 26(4), Problem 2097 by Monte Zerger]

The sequence of palindromic primes begins 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 101, 131, 151, 181, 191, 313, 353, etc. Taking the last two of these, we discover that 666 is the sum of two consecutive palindromic primes:

666 = 313 + 353.

A well-known remarkably good approximation to pi is 355/113 = 3.1415929... If one part of this fraction is reversed and added to the other part, we get

553 + 113 = 666.

[from Martin Gardner's "Dr. Matrix" columns] The Dewey Decimal System classification number for "Numerology" is 133.335. If you reverse this and add, you get

133.335 + 533.331 = 666.666

[from G. L. Honaker, Jr.] There are exactly 6 6's in 666⁶. There are also exactly 6 6's in the previous sentence!

[by P. De Geest, slight refinement by M. Keith] The number 666 is equal to the sum of the digits of its 47th power, and is also equal to the sum of the digits of its 51st power. That is,

66647 =

5049969684420796753173148798405564772941516295265 4081881176326689365404466160330686530288898927188 59670297563286219594665904733945856

66651 =

9935407575913859403342635113412959807238586374694 3100899712069131346071328296758253023455821491848 0960748972838900637634215694097683599029436416

and the sum of the digits on the right hand side is, in both cases, 666. In fact, 666 is the only integer greater than one with this property. (Also, note that from the two powers, 47 and 51, we get (4+7)(5+1) = 66.)

The number 666 is one of only two positive integers equal to the sum of the cubes of the digits in its square, plus the digits in its cube. On the one hand, we have

666² = 443556
666³ = 295408296

while at the same time,

(4³ + 4³ + 3³ + 5³ + 5³ + 6³) + (2+9+5+4+0+8+2+9+6) = 666.

The other number with this property is 2583.

We can state properties like this concisely be defining S_k(n) to be the sum of the kth powers of the digits of n. Then we can summarize items #13, #14, and #2 on this page by simply writing:

666	= S2(666) + S3(666)
	= S1(66647)
	= S1(66651)
	= S3(6662) + S1(6663)

[P. De Geest and G. L. Honaker, Jr.] Now that we have the S_k(n) notation, define SP(n) as the sum of the first n palindromic primes. Then:

S₃( SP(666) ) = 3 · 666

where the same digits (3, 666) appear on both sides of the equation!

[by Carlos Rivera] The number 20772199 is the smallest integer with the property that the sum of the prime factors of n and the sum of the prime factors of n+1 are both equal to 666:

20772199 = 7 x 41 x 157 x 461, and 7+41+157+461 = 666
20772200 = 2x2x2x5x5x283x367, and 2+2+2+5+5+283+367 = 666.

Of course, integers n and n+1 having the same sum of prime factors are the famous Ruth-Aaron pairs. So we can say that (20772199, 20772200) is the smallest beastly Ruth-Aaron pair.

[by G. L. Honaker, Jr.] The sum of the first 666 primes contains 666:

2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11 · · · + 4969 + 4973 = 1533157 = 23 · 66659

[Wang, J. Rec. Math, 26(3)] The number 666 is related to the golden ratio! (If a rectangle has the property that cutting off a square from it leaves a rectangle whose proportions are the same as the original, then that rectangle's proportions are in the golden ratio. Also, the golden ratio is the limit, as n becomes large, of the ratio between adjacent numbers in the Fibonacci sequence.) Denoting the Golden Ratio by t, we have the following identity, where the angles are in degrees:

sin(666) = cos(6·6·6) = -t/2

which can be combined into the lovely expression:

t = - (sin(666) + cos(6·6·6) )

There are exactly two ways to insert '+' signs into the sequence 123456789 to make the sum 666, and exactly one way for the sequence 987654321:

666 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 567 + 89 = 123 + 456 + 78 + 9
666 = 9 + 87 + 6 + 543 + 21

[from Patrick Capelle]

666 is a divisor of 123456789 + 987654321.

[from Patrick Capelle] 666 can be expressed just using the digit 3, as

666 = p(3·3·3) + p(p(3·3·3))

where p(i) means the ith prime number (that is, p(1) = 2, p(2) = 3, p(3) = 5, etc.)

A Smith number is an integer in which the sum of its digits is equal to the sum of the digits of its prime factors. 666 is a Smith number, since

666 = 2·3·3·37

while at the same time

6 + 6 + 6 = 2 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 7.

Consider integers n with the following special property: if n is written in binary, then the one's complement is taken (which changes all 1's to 0's and all 0's to 1's), then the result is written in reverse, the result is the starting integer n. The first few such numbers are

2 10 12 38 42 52 56 142 150 170 178 204 212 232 240 542 558 598 614...

For example, 38 is 100110, which complemented is 011001, which reversed is 100110. Now, you don't really need to be told what the next one after 614 is, do you?

The following fact is quite well known, but still interesting: If you write the first 6 Roman numerals, in order from largest to smallest, you get 666:

DCLXVI = 666.

The previous one suggests a form of word play that was popular several centuries ago: the chronogram. A chronogram attaches a numerical value to an English phrase or sentence by summing up the values of any Roman numerals it contains. (Back then, U,V and I,J were often considered the same letter for the purpose of the chronogram, however I prefer to distinguish them.) What's the best English chronogram for 666? Here's one that's pretty apt:

Expect The Devil.

Note that four of the six numerals are contained in the last word.

A standard function in number theory is phi(n), which is the number of integers smaller than n and relatively prime to n. Remarkably,

phi(666) = 6·6·6.

The nth triangular number is given by the formula T(n) = (n)(n+1)/2, and is equal to the sum of the numbers from 1 to n.

666 is the 36th triangular number - in other words,

T(6·6) = 666.

In 1975 Ballew and Weger proved (see J. Rec. Math, Vol. 8, No. 2):

666 is the largest triangular number that's also a repdigit

(A repdigit is a number consisting of a single repeated non-zero digit, like 11 or 22 or 555555.)

[From Patrick Capelle] 666 is the sum of the squares of two consecutive triangular numbers:

666 = 15² + 21²

which can also be elegantly written as

T(6·6) = T(5)² + T(6)².

But also note that T(5) + T(6) = T(8). Indeed, 666 is the smallest triangular number of the form a² + b² with a+b also triangular.

The doubly-triangular numbers are those numbers of the form T(T(n)), where T(n) are the triangular numbers defined in the previous item. The sequence of doubly-triangular numbers begins

1, 6, 21, 55, 120, 321, 406, 666, 1035

so we see that 666 is the eighth doubly-triangular number (i.e., T(T(8)) = 666).

The nth doubly-triangular number is, among other things, the number of ways to paint the vertices of a square using a set of n colors, where the colors are distinct but rotations and reflections of a given colored square are considered the same. So there are 666 distinct ways of painting the vertices of a square with a set of eight colors.

[from Monte Zerger] 6 (= T(3)), 66 (= T(11)), and 666 (= T(36)) are all triangular numbers in base 10. These three numbers are also triangular in two other bases: 49 and 2040:

(6)₄₉ = 6 = T(3)
(66)₄₉ = 300 = T(24)
(666)₄₉ = 14706 = T(171)

(6)₂₀₄₀ = 6 = T(3)
(66)₂₀₄₀ = 12246 = T(1564)
(666)₂₀₄₀ = 24981846 = T(7068)

[from Monte Zerger] 666⁶ = 87266061345623616, which contains 6 6's. In addition, the digits of 666⁶ can be split into two sets in two different ways, both of which sum up to the same value, 36 (= 6 x 6).

The first eight and last nine digits both sum to 36:

8 + 7 + 2 + 6 + 6 + 0 + 6 + 1 = 6 x 6 = 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 2 + 3 + 6 + 1 + 6

while the 6's and non-6's also add up to 36:

6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 = 6 x 6 = 8 + 7 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 2 + 3 + 1

Finally, note that 666⁶ is almost pandigital - the only digit it's missing is an upside-down 6 (i.e., 9).

A polygonal number is a positive integer of the form

P(k,n) = n((k - 2)n + 4 - k)/2

where k is the 'order' of the polygonal number (k=3 gives the triangular numbers, k=4 the squares, k=5 the pentagonal numbers, etc.), and n is its index. A repdigit polygonal number is a polygonal number that also happens to be a repdigit. Finally, define the wickedness of a polygonal number as n/k. Now, an amazing fact:

666 is conjectured to be the most wicked repdigit polygonal number.

Since 666 = P(3,36), its wickedness value is n/k = 12. I recently showed by computer calculation that there are no counterexamples to this conjecture less than 10⁵⁰. See my paper here for more details. It seems quite certain that this is true but so far no one has proved it.

Whilst on the subject of polygonal numbers, we can find among them some rather beastly configurations. One of the more striking is the following:

If one arranges a group of people in a solid 3010529326318802-sided polygon with 666 people on each side, there will be a total of 666666666666666666666 persons in all.

Or, more simply, P(3010529326318802, 666) = 666666666666666666666. See the paper link in the previous item for more like this.

Define PI(n,d) as the d consecutive decimal digits of the number π (3.14159265358979...) starting at the nth digit after the decimal point. Then we can make the following pretty statement:

PI(666, 3) = 7·7·7 (since the digits at that position are "343", or 7 cubed)

as well as the following one, which contains nothing but 6's and 3's (and two 666's):

PI(666 · 3.663663663..., 3) = 666.

Inserting zeros between the sixes in 666 gives the number 60606, which has a few interesting properties of its own:

60606 = 7 x 13 x 666 = 91 x 666 = T(13) x T(36) - i.e., 60606 is the product of two triangular numbers.

60606 = 7 x 37 x (13 x 18), which is interesting in that Rev 13:18 is the place where 666 is mentioned.

60606 = P(7,156) - i.e., 60606 is a 7-gonal number. (Note that this can be written entirely using the evocative numbers 6, 7, and 13, by saying 60606 = P(7, (6+6)·13)). In addition we can make a statement using only 7's:

60606 is the 7th palindromic 7-gonal number.

60606 has exactly 6 prime factors.

60606+1 is a prime number. Not only that, but it's a prime (p) for which the period length of the decimal expansion of its reciprocal (1/p) attains the maximum possible value of p-1. In other words:

1/(60606 + 1) has period length 60606.

60606 is, just like 666, the sum of two consecutive palindromic primes (both of which contain the evil eyes!):

60606 = 30203 + 30403.

[Thanks to G. L. Honaker, Jr., Jud McCranie, Monte Zerger, and Patrick De Geest for these.]

While we're on the subject of numbers closely related to 666...in July 2000 I snapped the following picture of my car's odometer

which suggests that it might be worthwile to explore the double-wide-beast number (666666). Besides the obvious 666666 = 1001 x 666, Patrick De Geest points out that 666666 is a palindrome in both base 10 and base 16 (hex-adecimal - get it?), where its value is A2C2A. He also notes that in base 31 it is MBMB, which just like 666666 (made of two 666's) is formed by concatenating two identical parts (MB). Perhaps MB could be read as Multiple Beast.

[found by Jud McCranie] It is a theorem that every positive integer occurs as the period length of the reciprocal of some prime. So, the obvious question arises: what's the smallest prime with period length 666? The answer was found in June 1998:

p = 902659997773 is the smallest prime whose reciprocal has period length 666.

The first 666 digits after the decimal point of 1/p (which then repeat) are:

000000000001107836840523732794015856393629176199911567364459
553453849096605279881838076680979988886781773038423114524370
500571392445408560228574284480352437836776725525116619485115
892576776519141738094220028289530945207260114524370499463555
604884827434558428086723261636865158160657066031266795971496
637303661413240039402749172168836999999999998892163159476267
205984143606370823800088432635540446546150903394720118161923
319020011113218226961576885475629499428607554591439771425715
519647562163223274474883380514884107423223480858261905779971
710469054792739885475629500536444395115172565441571913276738
363134841839342933968733204028503362696338586759960597250827
831163

Observe that if you turn the prime p upside down, there's a 666 inside, slightly to the left of the middle, and if you turn the single period of 1/p upside down, there's a 66666666666 inside, slightly to the left of the middle!

[from Simon Whitechapel] A mathematically important number sequence is:

7, 17, 19, 23, 29, 47, 59, 61, 97, 109, 113, 131, 149, ...

which is the sequence of primes p whose reciprocal in base 10 has maximum period p-1. The last one, 1/149 with period 148, has the following digits after the decimal point (which then repeat):

0067114093959731543624161073825503355
7046979865771812080536912751677852348
9932885906040268456375838926174496644
2953020134228187919463087248322147651

As luck would have it, the sum of these is 666. If these 148 numbers (the first 148 digits of 1/149) are written as the top row of a 148x148 square grid, and then the digits of 2/149 as the second row, then 3/149 and so on, the result is a 148x148 pseudo-magic square, in which every row and column sums to 666.

[sent in by P. De Geest] The smallest prime number with a gap of 666 (that is, such that the prime following it is larger than it by exactly 666) is

18691113008663

Note the three sixes! Also, Patrick Capelle points out that this prime (1869113008663) and the following one (1869113008663 + 666 = 18691113009329) both have the same digit sum, 53 (also a prime).

Define a dottable fraction as one in which dots (representing multiplication) can be interspersed in both the numerator and denominator to produce an expression that's equal to the original fraction. The noteworthy dottable fraction

 666   =   6·6·6  64676     6·46·76 

has a numerator of 666 and a denominator of the form 6x6y6.

Here's another one (actually, two) based on a fraction [by Manley Perkel and Mike Keith]. The fraction 1666/6664 (which has a 666 in both numerator and denominator) has two interesting properties:

(1) The numerical value of the fraction (0.25) is the same as the numerical value of the fraction you get by "canceling" (i.e., erasing or removing) the 666 from both the numerator and denominator.

(2) The value of the fraction is the same as the value you get by splitting the fraction in half and multiplying the two parts together; that is,

1666  =  16 . 666664     66   64

A fraction like this is known as a fractured fraction.

The alphametic below has a unique solution (i.e., there is only one way to replace letters with digits so that the addition sum is correct):

   SIX
   SIX
   SIX
+BEAST
 SATAN

[by Monte Zerger] Note that 1998 (a recent year) = 666 + 666 + 666. Not only that, but if we set A=3, B=6, C=9, etc., we find, amazingly, that

NINETEEN NINETY EIGHT = 666

Frank Fiederer points out that the age of the United States in 1998 is also related to 666, since

1998 - 1776 = 666/3.

Finally, we close with an observation that makes a commentary on the folly of attaching a specific meaning to the number 666. If the letter A is defined to be equal to 36 (=6·6), B=37, C=38, and so on, then:

The sum of the letters in the word SUPERSTITIOUS is 666.

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666: The Number of the Beast
(see Rev 13:18)

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For more serious academic stuff, see BELOW, but first take a good look at:

A Fun Collection of Beastly Numbers

666	Biblical Number of the Beast
660	Approximate Number of the Beast
DCLXVI	Roman Numeral of the Beast
665	Number of the Beast's Older Brother
667	Number of the Beast's Younger Sister
668	Number of the Beast's Neighbor
999	Number of the Australian Beast
333	Number of the Semi-Beast
66	Number of the Downsized Beast
6, uh..., I forget	Number of the Blond Beast
666.0000	Number of the High Precision Beast
665.9997856	Number of the Beast on a Pentium
0.666	Number of the Millibeast
X / 666	Beast Common Denominator
0.00150150...	Reciprocal of the Beast
-666	Opposite of the Beast
666i	Imaginary Number of the Beast
6.66 x 102	Scientific Notation of the Beast
25.8069758...	Square Root of the Beast
443556	Square of the Beast
1010011010	Binary Number of the Beast
1232	Octal of the Beast
29A	Hexidecimal of the Beast
2.8235	Log of the Beast
6.5913	Ln of the Beast
1.738 x 10289	Anti-Log of the Beast
00666	Zip Code of the Beast
666@hell.org	E-mail Address of the Beast
www.666.com	Website of the Beast
1-666-666-6666	Phone & FAX Number of the Beast
1-888-666-6666	Toll Free Number of the Beast
1-900-666-6666	Live Beasts, available now! One-on-one pacts! Only $6.66 per minute! [Must be over 18!]
666-66-6666	Social Security Number of the Beast
Form 10666	Special IRS Tax Forms for the Beast
66.6%	Tax Rate of the Beast
6.66%	6-Year CD Interest Rate at First Beast Bank of Hell ($666 minimum deposit, $666 early withdrawal fee)
$666/hr	Billing Rate of the Beast's Lawyer
$665.95	Retail Price of the Beast
$710.36	Price of the Beast plus 6.66% Sales Tax
$769.95	Price of the Beast with accessories and replacement soul
$656.66	Wal-Mart Price of the Beast (next week $646.66!)
$55.50	Monthly Payments for Beast, in 12 easy installments
Phillips 666	Gasoline Used by the Beast (regular $6.66/gal)
Route 666	Highway of the Beast (where he gets his kicks!)
666 mph	Speed Limit on the Beast's Highway
6-6-6	Fertilizer of the Beast
666 lb cap	Weight Limit of the Beast
666 Minutes	Weekly News Show about the Beast (airs daily from Midnight to 11:06 a.m., on Cable Channel 666, of course)
666o F	Oven Temperature for Cooking "Roast Beast"
666k	Retirement Plan of the Beast
666 mg	Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
Lotus 6-6-6	Spreadsheet of the Beast
Word 6.66	Word Processor of the Beast
Windows 666	Bill Gates' Personal Beast Operating System
#666666	Font Color of the Beast (the gray in this table!)
i66686	CPU of the Beast
666-I	BMW of the Beast
IAM 666	License Plate Number of the Beast
Formula 666	All Purpose Cleaner of the Beast
WD-666	Spray Lubricant of the Beast
DSM-666 (rev)	Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast
66.6 MHz	FM Radio Station of the Beast
666 KHz	AM Radio Station of the Beast
66 for 6	A Beastly Score for an Innings (in cricket)
6 for 66	Bowling Figures of the Beast
6/6/6	Birthday of the Beast (but in which century?)

This collection was compiled and expanded from various sources,
including anonymous e-mails forwarded by various people,
and similar collections online at http://www.yamon.freeserve.co.uk/Beast.html
and http://www.dontflameme.com/jokes/2000jokes/january2000.html

P.S. How many rows are in the above table? Is that a coincidence?

Finally, for those with a mathematical mindset (and/or a penchant for gambling),
note that the sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel [1+2+3+4+...+36] also equals 666!

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Other Fun and Humorous 666 Sites:

• The Number of the Beast - some mathematical fun and games; compiled by Mike Keith
• Find the Antichrist(s): A Quiz - from the PBS Frontline: Apocalypse! website
• The Antichrist: Have You Seen This Man? - a long list of names of famous people thought to be the Antichrist
• Evidence that Ronald Reagan was the Beast of Revelation - proof or coincidence???
• William J. Clinton has the number of the Beast - an argument (seriously?) from the BeComing One Church (see also their "Beast Links")
• Project 666 - lots of wild, pseudo-political stuff, in English and Spanish!

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The More Serious and Academic Stuff

What or Who Is the Beast?

The answer to this nearly 2000-year-old question depends on how you choose to interpret the Book of Revelation (a.k.a. the Apocalypse), the last book of the New Testament.

Near the middle of this highly symbolic book are descriptions of several strange creatures:

• First, "a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads"; it is described further after being defeated by Michael and his angels in a battle in heaven: "The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world--he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him" (Rev 12:3-18);
• Second, "a beast rising out of the sea having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names... [it] was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority..." (Rev 13:1-10);
• Third, "another beast that rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast..." (Rev 13:11-18).

At the end of the paragraph about this third beast, the author challenges the reader with an intriguing puzzle: "This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six." (13:18).

In order to understand this text, one must know that ancient Hebrew (like Greek and other ancient languages) did not have a separate set of characters to indicate numbers, but simply used the letters of its alphabet to represent numbers. This fact provides the basis for the ancient practice of "gematria," in which numerical equivalents of words and names are calculated (still a popular game today!).

• The basic idea is that every word has a number associated with it, obtained by adding up the numerical equivalent of each letter in the word.
• This is mostly commonly done with names; thus every person has a number, the numerical value of his or her name.
• There are several different ways of assigning numbers to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, but the system most commonly used is this:
  alef = 1; bet = 2; gimel = 3; dalet = 4; hey = 5; waw = 6; zayin = 7; chet = 8; tet = 9; yod = 10; kaf = 20; lamed = 30; mem = 40; nun = 50; samek = 60; ayin = 70; pey = 80; tsadeh = 90; qof = 100; resh = 200; shin = 300; taw = 400.
• For example, the name "David" has a value of 14 in Hebrew (since it is written dalet-waw-dalet, which is 6+4+6); see Matthew 1:17.
• The same game can be played in any other language by assigning numerical equivalents to each letter of the alphabet: for example, a = 1, b = 2, c = 3, etc.
• However, which system you choose may depend on the results you want; for example, you can get HITLER = 666 if you use a system in which a=100, b=101, c=102, etc.
• For a more extensive introduction to Hebrew gematria, see The Art of Gematria: Hebrew Numerology.

So, who is the person whose number is 666?

• Throughout history, attempts have been made to identify 666 with many famous people (usually one's enemies)!
• Since the Reformation (and still today!), some Protestants have tried to connect 666 with the Pope, either with the "Roman Pontiff" in general or with a specific Pope in particular. For a current example, see the article by Michael Scheifler, from a Seventh Day Adventist perspective; but see also a response to this article by Mario Derksin on the "Catholic Insight" webpages. On the other hand, some Catholics used to see a link between the beast of the Book of Revelation and Martin Luther.
• Some Democrats might try to associate Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush with the beast, while some Republicans might argue it was John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton (see the websites listed in the "Fun and Humorous" section above).
• Most biblical historians agree, however, that the Book of Revelation is simply referring to the Roman Emperor NERO, the most "beastly" ruler of the first Christian Century:
  • The Hebrew equivalent of "Emperor Nero" could be written NRWN QSR (nun-resh-waw-nun qof-samek-resh); thus, the first word is 50+200+6+50, the second word is 100+60+200, and the total is no surprise!
  • While most ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have the number "six hundred sixty-six" in Rev 13:18, some manuscripts contain the alternate reading "six hundred sixteen" (616), including some recently published Oxyrhynchus Papyri. [This Oxyrhynchus Papyri website also has a discussion of Numerology, but opposes the application to Nero. Thanks to my friend and colleague Robert M. Royalty, Jr., Ph.D., for telling me about this new discovery and website!]
  • The "616" variant reading can easily be explained, and might even be the older or original reading of Rev 13:18, since the final letter "nun" is not needed in the Hebrew spelling of Nero. Thus, NRW QSR would be 50+200+6+100+60+200 = 616. If this was indeed the original reading, it is easy to see how the text of Rev 13:8 would have been changed to "666," due to its more highly symbolic value (since "6" represents lack or incompleteness, in contrast to the number "7" representing completion, the triple 666 represents evil more clearly than 616.)
  • For more extensive discussion of the first-century Roman Empire and the historical references behind the dragon, the sea beast, and the land beast in Rev 12-13, see any good biblical commentary on the Book of Revelation.

What about June 6, 2006?

Relax! Although this date could be abbreviated 6/6/6, it has absolutely nothing to do with the "Beast" of the Book of Revelation! Consider these few points:

• First, this date should more properly be written 6/6/06 or 06/06/06 or even 06/06/2006, since 6/6/6 is ambiguous as to the decade or century.
• Second, this date depends on the Gregorian calendar commonly used today, but is different on the calendars in use at the time the Book of Revelation was written (Julian, Roman, Hebrew), and also different on other calendars in use today (Islamic, Chinese, etc.)
• Third, Revelation 13:18 clearly says that 666 is "the number of a person," not an indication of any date.
• Fourth, combinations of three sixes can be found almost anywhere we want, if we look hard enough.
• Fifth, we can lots of have fun with all this, but there's no need to be worried or superstitious about it!
• Sixth, I had to put a sixth bullet in this list, but I don't really have much else to say about June 6! ;-)

However, since several people have recently asked me to predict what will happen on June 6, 2006, here's my reply:

As a biblical scholar and Catholic priest, I think trying to predict the future is a misuse of the Bible. Biblical prophecy is not about crystal-ball gazing into the future. Rather, prophets of the Bible are those who speak on behalf of God, conveying God's messages to people, interpreting the past, present, and future through God's eyes, so to speak. Biblical prophets call people to repent and to remain faithful to God, not to worry about when the world will end or who is the "beast" of the Book of Revelation.

But just for fun, after the above disclaimer, here is what I personally "predict" will happen on June 6, 2006:

• Most adults will go to work, but a few will call in sick, as on any other weekday;
• many children will go to the beach or the park, enjoying their first week of summer vacation, while an unfortunate few will struggle through their last days of school;
• websites like mine with information on 666 and related apocalyptic themes will have a spike in the number of visitors;
• millions of automobile odometers will briefly show a 666 sequence at some time during the day, but very few drivers will notice;
• only a few math afficionados will practice their factoring skills (666=2x3x3x37), while millions of shoppers will look for a 666 in a product bar code or on their sales receipts;
• lamentably few people will vote in California's primary election, and similarly few will go to see the remake of the "Omen" movie on its unusual mid-week opening night;
• more gamblers than usual will sit at a roulette table that evening, but few of them will know that the sum of the numbers on the spinning wheel equals 666;
• more people will get married than on most other Tuesdays, but some pregnant women will avoid giving birth on June 6 by have C-sections on June 5 or 7.
• Then, on June 7, most of us will wake up and wonder what all the fuss was about, while the wedding industry starts preparing for July 7, 2007!

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Addendum: Internet Users Beware!

In the ancient practice of gematria (assigning numerical values to letters),
the Hebrew letter "waw" is equivalent to the number "six."

So WWW is also equivalent to 666 !!!

Credit for this insight goes to John Stewart Muller, one of my former students at LMU.

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Return to the Study Guides for Apocalyptic Literature

Return to the HOME PAGE of Prof. Felix Just, S.J.

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This page was established around 9/9/99, significantly expanded 01/01/01, revised again 02/02/02, and may self-destruct on 06/06/06 !

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