I always enjoy a presentation more when the presenter simply doesn't read and repeat their paper in power-point format. Andy Pearson's IoR Presidential address back in October took this moving away from his printed paper 'Managing Innovation' further than most.

Weaving around the theme of innovation Andy's presentation skipped through a few number patterns and sequences, staying on each just long enough to reveal their secret before quickly moving on. It seems that numbers can have interesting patterns and meaning if we only know where and how to look at them. So I started looking.

Andy will be presiding over the 111th Institute of Refrigeration's annual dinner February. Any pattern here I wondered? Well, a quick google search immediately revealed that 111 (sometimes called a Nelson after Admiral Nelson who allegedly only had 'one eye, one arm and one leg') is considered unlucky as a cricket score because "111" resembles a wicket without bails. It is also, apparently the emergency telephone number in New Zealand. Hmmm...all very interesting but not particularly good omens. I kept looking.

Then I discovered 'Magic squares' in mathematics. This looked more promising. A Numeric Magic Square must consist of a series of numbers arranged in a square in such a manner that the sum of each row, each column and of both the corner diagonals adds up to the same amount, which is called the "Magic Total".
An example of a 6x6 magic square is:

6	32	3	34	35	1
7	11	27	28	8	30
24	14	16	15	23	19
13	20	22	21	17	18
25	29	10	9	26	12
36	5	33	4	2	31

Here, every number between 1 and 36 is used. All columns and rows (and the two diagonals) add to 111.

Interesting stuff, but not really something I could relate to the IoR dinner or its President. So, anything else? I looked further. Taking the same magic square, the total of all rows (or all columns) is 666. Also adding all the numbers together: 1+2+3+...+36 = 666! The number of the beast or the devil's number. I recognised it instantly from the Omen trilogy. But what does it mean in terms of the dinner. Well, in truth, I couldn't find any connections at all. Even with as inventive an imagination as I have developed from a misspent youth watching Hammer horror films I couldn't make a connection.

Whist all this searching for a 'magic' number pattern was interesting, there actually is only one number that is far more important for the dinner and to me, and one which is also far simpler to explain and understand. The number that matters is how many people attend, and for me, it is quite straightforward in that it is important to me that I attend. The dinner has been a continuing success for over one hundred years because members and others from the industry want to be there and enjoy themselves once they are there. The IoR dinner committee have worked hard once again to make the event less formal and attractive. Some times are all guilty of analysing things too deeply. I am simply going to go along and enjoy hopefully enjoy the evening.

That doesn't mean that I have given up on my search for number patterns. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." Hmmmm.....I wonder if anyone called Damien will be at the dinner!