Fear of Numbers

Which kinds the word covers

Generalised arithmophobia is fear of all numbers. Fear of specific numbers is a different thing and usually cultural or religious in origin. The number 666 combines three digits that stand for the antichrist in the Bible. In China, Vietnam and Japan the number 4 stands for death. In many cultures 13 is unlucky and feared on that basis. Fear of a particular number is not merely decorative either: it makes people perform worse in professional and educational settings, because the number turns up where it turns up.

Sometimes the fear attaches to a property rather than a value, with people afraid of even numbers, odd numbers, unlucky numbers or lucky ones.

Which numbers have their own names

Each feared number has been given its own name:

• tetraphobia, for 4
• triskaidekaphobia, for 13
• heptadecaphobia, for 17
• eikositriophobia, for 23, which comes with the 23 enigma attached
• triakontenneaphobia, for 39, which comes with the curse of 39
• hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, for 666, the longest word in the vocabulary and the shortest superstition

Music keeps its own numerical superstitions, in the curse of the ninth and in the 27 Club.

Why large numbers frighten separately

Meganumerophobia is fear of large numbers, meaning millions, billions, trillions and upward, and the people who have it are untroubled by smaller and more imaginable ones. What frightens them, for some sufferers, is that a high enough number stands in for eternity, which is why people with apeirophobia may fear large numbers as well. It is a rare case of a phobia scaling with its object.

What the symptoms and treatments are

The physical symptoms are those of anxiety disorders in general: chills, dizziness and lightheadedness, heavy sweating, palpitations, nausea, shortness of breath, trembling and an upset stomach, at intensities that vary widely between cases.

Exposure therapy is the common treatment, with the person carefully exposed to the feared object under controlled conditions until it becomes clear that it is not harmful. Cognitive behavioural therapy, hypnotherapy in the form of guided concentration and relaxation, and anti-anxiety medication are the other routes.

Why an economist abridged his book

The earliest recorded use is from 1946, in Ivor Bulmer-Thomas's economic survey The Problem of Italy. So many apparently educated persons suffer from arithmophobia, he writes, that the conclusions his chapters point to will be stated briefly instead.

That sentence records a consequence the clinical descriptions do not reach. A writer with a quantitative argument decided his readers could not follow it and summarised, which means the effect of this fear falls partly on people who do not have it. What they receive is a conclusion without the working.

It is also a fear the author expects his readers to recognise in themselves without offence. Nobody writes that so many apparently educated persons suffer from arachnophobia.

Why the named numbers are named

The names above attach to a meaning a language or a scripture gave the figure, not to the figure. The number four is feared in China, Vietnam and Japan because the word for it sounds like the word for death, which is a fear of a homophone.

Why mathematics anxiety is a different subject

Rajendra Kunwar's 2020 paper on mathematics phobia treats arithmophobia and numerophobia as one word for the fear of numbers, and Wikipedia's opening sentence goes further, giving numerophobia, arithmophobia and mathematics anxiety as a single thing. They are not.

Mathematics anxiety is a construct in educational psychology with instruments, a large research base and interventions built for classrooms. Arithmophobia in the specific-number sense is a superstition with a Greek name. Running them together means that anything true of the first can be quoted as though it were true of the second, and the popular pages carrying this word do exactly that.