INGENIOUS FAKE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21506, 11 September 1944, Page 4

INGENIOUS FAKE

WAR’S END “FORECAST’ PLAYING WITH FIGURES Considerable currency has been given recently to a tabulation which purported to forecast, by an arrangement of historical dates, that the war would end last Thursday—to be precise. at 2 o’clock on the seventh day of the ninth month.

The tabulation took the birth year, age. year of entry into office, and the number of years in office of each of the major ligures in six nations most deeply involved in the war. These arc Churchill, Hitler. Roosevelt. Mussolini, Stalin and. Tojo. Mussolini is indicated in the table as 11 Duce. in order to give a Biblical flavour to the fake, the initials being arranged to produce the name of the Son of God. The total of the birth years, ages, years of entry into office and years spent in office comes to 3888 in each instance, and this fact is considered a striking indication of the working of coincidence —or of fate, as some people would have it. By dividing 3888 by two, the table produces tiie figure 1944. which is quoted as the year in which the war will end: by dividing 1944, the figure 972 is found, and it is claimed — perhaps was claimed would fit the situation better—that tins indicated the date and time of the war’s ending: The ninth month, seventh day, and tiie second hour.

The basis of the fake “forecast’’ is obvious enough, but there arc still people who have not solved it. It is quite evident, that the years of a living man’s age', added to tiie year of his birth, must produce a total of 1944. and that the years lie has sonnt in office, added to the year in which he entered office, must also produce 1944. Adding the two together makes 3883. The same result could he secured, in the case of a garbage contractor born in 1910, and having held his contract for the past live years. His age would be 34, and he must have taken up his contract in 1939. The four figures inevitably add up to 3888. The tabulation does not suggest why the total of 3888 should be divided by two. to get the year of. the war’s end, nor why a quarter of the 3888 should purport to show tiie date and time. The- effluxion of' time lias proved, the “forecast'’ worthless, in any case;