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Sandy
Quiz of the Day: Friday the Thirteenth
by Sandy - October 13, 2006 - 12:01 AM

Quiz for Friday, October 13, 2006: Friday the Thirteenth

1. True or False: Every calendar year contains at least one Friday the 13th.
a. true   b. false

2. True or False: Fourteen Friday the 13th motion pictures have been made (so far) in the horror series.
a. true   b. false

3. True or False: The 13th day of any month is more likely to occur on a Friday than any other day of the week.
a. true   b. false

4. True or False: The fear of Friday the 13th is known as paraskevidekatriaphobia.
a. true   b. false

5. True or False: Any month that begins on a Sunday contains a Friday the 13th.
a. true   b. false

click the highlighted (more…) link that follows to see the answers ->

ANSWERS:

1. True or False: Every calendar year contains at least one Friday the 13th.
a. true

2. True or False: Fourteen Friday the 13th motion pictures have been made (so far) in the horror series.
b. false

3. True or False: The 13th day of any month is more likely to occur on a Friday than any other day of the week.
a. true

4. True or False: The fear of Friday the 13th is known as paraskevidekatriaphobia.
a. true

5. True or False: Any month that begins on a Sunday contains a Friday the 13th.
a. true

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Comments (6)

  1. Can someone please explain why “The 13th day of any month is more likely to occur on a Friday than any other day of the week”?

    posted by Deb on 10-13-2006 at 9:28 am

  2. From Wikipedia:

    This sequence, here given for 2001-2028, repeats every 28 years from 1901 to 2099. The months with a Friday the 13th are determined by the Dominical letter (G, F, GF, etc.) of the year. All months whose first day falls on a Sunday will contain a Friday the 13th.

    The Gregorian Calendar 400-year cycle contains a whole number (20871) of weeks, but the number of months (4800) is not divisible by seven. Because of this, no chosen day of the month up to the 28th can occur the same number of times on each day of the week. The 13th day of the month is slightly more likely to be on a Friday than on any other day of the week.

    The distribution of the 13th day of the 4,800 months is as follows:

    * 688: Friday
    * 687: Sunday and Wednesday
    * 685: Monday and Tuesday
    * 684: Thursday and Saturday.

    posted by Deron on 10-13-2006 at 10:03 am

  3. It’s really because of the cycles of the calendar, with leap days and such. When you calculate it out, there’s a slightly greater chance that the 13th of the month will be on a Friday than on any other day of the week.

    This page breaks down the actual statistics. The difference is slight, but it exists.

    posted by Sandy on 10-13-2006 at 10:12 am

  4. I’ve always heard of Fear of Friday the 13th reffered to as Trisadekaphobia but apparently thats the just the fear of the number 13 (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Triskaidekaphobia.html). Somewhere along the line it must have made the leap to the fear of friday the 13.

    posted by Fotis on 10-13-2006 at 12:31 pm

  5. Cool! Thanks!

    posted by Deb on 10-13-2006 at 3:45 pm

  6. You’re right, Fotis. And the two fears are closely related.

    The phobia mentioned in the quiz is a fairly new word (coined in the 1990s, I believe) to specifically refer to the fear of the day.

    posted by Sandy on 10-13-2006 at 5:58 pm

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