Friday, August 07, 2009

Life In Triplicate

My friend Maureen came up with that line, and I had to use it.

And it got me thinking that there are a lot of things that come in threes, or have three parts, or involve the number 3. It turns out that 3 is a significant number that turns up, well, just about everywhere. In design, three is the minimum number of objects needed to create visual tension. Many schools of philosophy include three-way ideas, such as Aristotle's 3-in-1 idea (Mind, Self-knowledge, and Self-love), or Francis Bacon's three tables (presence, absence, degree).

Things that come in threes, involve three, etc:

My newborn grandkids, the most perfect little people in the world
Flute Trios
Good luck
Bad luck
Little Pigs
Billy Goats Gruff
Blind Mice
Bears (Goldilocks and the...)
Wise Men
Wishes
French Hens
Half of a knitted 6-stitch cable
Catholic Holy Trinity
Wheels on a tricycle
Movements in a sonata
Holiday weekends
Pigs In A Blanket
Months in each season
Image zones (not to be confused with the Zone System)
First odd prime number
Dimensions
Dog Night
Populations in Plato's Utopian city
Tic-Tac-Toe
Stooges
Phony dollar bills
Waltz time
Bean Salad
Is the third unique Fibonacci number
Cheers
Social group types in Great Apes
Meals a day
The adhesive company that makes sticky notes
Tenors
Geological divisions of the Earth
Strikes
Outs
Tolkein's rings
Days between Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection
Asimov's Laws of Robotics
Distinct species of the genus Homo
Semicircular canals in the human ear
Types of galaxies
Leaves on a Shamrock
R's
Letters on eight of the eleven numeric buttons on a touch tone phone
Power states: on, off, pause
Points in a right angle
Types of relationships between database table
A type of bet, and also the money positions in a horse race
Hat trick
Times that something is attempted
Hat worn by soldiers in the American Revolution, and also by Chelsea Pensioners in formal dress
A crowd
The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes
Of a kind
Peas in a pod
Names in Neil deGrasse Tyson's name
Time a lady
Musketeers
Amigos
Faces of Eve
Questions (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
Shells (Demolition Man)
Cherries on a pawn shop sign
Light bulbs (three-way)
Company
Short blasts or signals from a ship meaning "I am operating astern propulsion"

What are your three things?

2 comments:

  1. OMG!!!! I am amazed, impressed, blown-away (3 things) by your list and I am forwarding this post to some friends, because I know they can get into this type of list. Remember when your step-dad and CM and I lived on San Juan Island for awhile in 1980, while step-dad helped his dad build a house for an artist? His paintings were "points of light" and they were always in threes.....he got lots of money for those paintings and I could never figure out why-must have been the "law of threes". I'm not sure I can come up with any more threes, but I'll think on it. Good going, girl!

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