How do you feel about coincidences? Serendipity, fate, destiny, whatever you call it, you know what I'm talking about--those events that occur which are totally independent of one another, yet are seemingly connected in some way.
Here's an example: Mark Twain was born on the day of the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835, and died on the day of its next appearance in 1910. He himself predicted this in 1909, when he said: "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it."
My favorite is this little known fact: In Psalm 46 of the King James Bible, published in the year that Shakespeare turned 46, the 46th word is "shake" and the 46th word from the end is "spear." (Really?? Who, pray tell, noticed this?)
This is what I know...whether you believe in the power of these accidents of nature or not, many of the remarkable feats our brains regularly perform--including our ability to learn the meaning of words or decode the many mathematical equations necessary for survival in today's world--depend on our ability to notice coincidences.
That, and they're just really fun.
(Like physics...)
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