Did you know that the word "fortnight" is shorthand for fourteen nights?

 Did you know that the word "fortnight" is shorthand for fourteen nights?

Over the ages, people have attributed many facts to numbers.

Numerology, superstition, important dates, and so many other things cling to various numbers, which in some cases gives them great significance!

Today let’s take a look at 14 interesting facts about the number 14.

The number fourteen is something we call a composite number in mathematics, which is essentially any positive number resulting from multiplying two smaller positive numbers together.

The atomic number of the chemical element silicon is 14. Blue-grey in color, silicon belongs to the 14th group of the periodic table of elements, known as the carbon group. Its pure form, which is incredibly rare on earth, is solid yet brittle and crystalline in nature. It’s most commonly found in impure forms, chemically bound with other chemical elements such as oxygen.

A period of two weeks is also known as a fortnight. Unsurprisingly, a fortnight is a shorthand for fourteen nights. So if you do something every two weeks, you could say that you do it fortnightly. In some countries, such as Australia, it’s common to be paid fortnightly.

In the UK, a person’s weight is often measured in “stones,” while people are measured in pounds in the US. The conversion between the two is quite simple, as one stone weighs the same as fourteen pounds. This, of course, makes zero sense to anyone who uses the much more logical metric system.