Taxonomy
Where does the number actually live?
Do not call every operation a cipher. Letters calculated under one system plus a numeral already in a title is composite arithmetic. Strong’s 420 is an index. Rainbow 42° is an angle. Numbers 33 is a count. Adams is designed. Ithaca is a modern letter-sum.
| Letter sum | ITHACA ordinal 42 | Letters mapped to numbers, then added. This is a cipher result. |
|---|---|---|
| Textual count | Forty-two stages · Maʽat’s 42 confessions | How many times something is enumerated in a text. Numbers 33’s forty-two stages live here. Maʽat’s 42 confessions live here too. Enheduanna’s 42 temple hymns live here. Same species. Different traditions. |
| Calendar date | 1690 inside Locke | A year, a day, a stamp. 1690 containing 69 lives here. 1969, the year the Temple Hymns re-entered print, lives here too. |
| Coordinate | Ithaca, NY ~42°26′ N | A degree on a chart or a map. Ithaca, New York, near 42°26′ N lives here. Not a letter-sum. Not a landing. |
| Angle | Rainbow ~42° | A measured turn. The primary rainbow near 42° lives here. |
| Measurement | 142 sols · southern spring on Mars | A physical quantity that happens to be a number we know. A day of 24 hours lives here. The shortest Martian season, 142 sols, lives here. The Dresden table’s 584-day synodic year lives here too. None of these is a letter-sum. |
| Index number | Strong’s G420 · Dresden page 24 | A catalogue stamp. Strong’s numbers live here. Dresden page 24, a later pagination of a broken screenfold, lives here too. Not gematria. Not the scribes’ 584. |
| Literal digit | The 42 already written | The numeral already written in the title. Do not mix it silently into a cipher. |
| Composite arithmetic | WITH 24 + LOVE 18 | Two or more operations combined: 18 + 24, a cipher plus a written number. Label it. |
| Derived arithmetic | 84 = 2 × 42 | A relation noticed after the calculation: 84 = 2 × 42 as arithmetic only. |
| Designed number | Adams chose 42 | Someone put it there. Adams’s 42. Not the same as finding it there. |
| Retrospective number | Later classification | Later classification or chronology. Handle as later. |
| Random match | A hit in a large search | A hit in a large search. Possible. Not therefore meaningful. |
A diagram is a claim.
Proximity is not transmission.