This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Jeffrey Rosenthal was a young professor at the University of Toronto when he discovered he was born on a Friday—though not just any Friday. "Everyone knows their birth date, and mine is Oct. 13," says Rosenthal, a professor of probability and statistical computing in the Faculty of Arts & Science's department of statistical sciences.
"But it wasn't until I wrote my own calendar computer program and went all the way back to my date of birth with it that I discovered I was born on Friday the 13th." Rosenthal recently published a paper in the journal Chance with co-author Jennifer Dmetrichuk—an assistant professor in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and a forensic pathologist and regional supervising coroner in Toronto—that explores the widely held notion that bad events are more likely to occur on Friday the 13th, a fear known as paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia. They also looked at the effect of full moons, Halloween and times of year. "Scientific literacy is important to me," says Rosenthal, who is the author of Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities and Knock on Wood, both of which explore probability and luck.
"I'm trying to convince people how important it is to understand how the world works and that we shouldn't make up superstitions. "That and the fact I was born on Friday the 13th made this study more personal for me than most." U of T Faculty of Arts & Science writer Chris Sasaki recently spoke to Rosenthal about what he and Dmetrichuk learned. It's hard to pin down, but there've been many inauspicious events in history associated with that day.
For example, there were 13 people at the Last Supper, and one of them, Judas, betrayed Jesus. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France infamously arrested many members of the Knights Templar, which eventually led to the end of the order. There are many other events and associations throughout history that have reinforced the belief.
There's also the idea that 13 is the first "unfamiliar" number, the smallest number we can't easily picture in our heads. I think one of the reasons they arise is because we as humans like to believe there are reasons things happen. For example, with the full moon, people had this sense there was some power from above—gods or celestial objects—that had an influence on us.
They thought that when bad things happened, it wasn't just random bad luck. It was because of the full moon or because it was Friday the 13th—or, when good things happened, because of your astrological sign. People want to believe these things—that there's some force that gives meaning to what goes on.
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