Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology. The Tesla electric car is named after him. The tesla is a derived unit of the magnetic induction in the International System of Units. One tesla is equal to one weber per square meter.
Tesla was multitalented. He was a physicist, an engineer and a numerologist. Tesla believed that the numbers 3, 6 and 9 are divine. They bridge the physical realm and the metaphysical realm.
There are many stories of Tesla’s obsession with his divine numbers. He walked around a block repeatedly for three times before entering a building. He cleaned his plates with 18 napkins because the sum of the two digits is 9. He stayed in hotel rooms only with a number divisible by 3.
The I Ching is also obsessed with the numbers 3. 6 and 9. The building blocks are trigrams with 3 lines. They combine to form hexagrams with 6 lines. An old yang line is 9 and old yin 6.
Aren’t two, four and eight more “divine” that three, six and nine? After all, Yi math is binary. To find the Tesla numbers in the I Ching requires a bit of work. Let us start from the digrams. There are four digrams by virtue of binary math. Logically the number is four, but physically the number is three, a Tesla number. To derive the number three, we must return to the definition of Gua. Gua means a sign that can be hung. Think a car license plate. The New Jersey car license plate has four holes – two close to the upper edge and two symmetrically placed near the lower edge. “Technically,” you can turn a license plate upside down and “hang” it. Suppose we could erase the license plate’s contents and replace it by a Gua. In case of digrams, we would only need to make three plates: one for Old Yang, one for Old Yin and one shared by Young Yin and Young Yang. Thus, the Tesla number 3 is tied to the 4 digrams.
For the trigrams, we need six plates as shown in the featured image:
- One for Qian 111.
- One for Kun 000.
- One for Kan 010.
- One for Li 101.
- One to be shared by Zhen 100 and Gen 001.
- One to be shared by Xun 011 and Dui 110.
Thus, the Tesla number 6 is tied to the 8 trigrams.
For the hexagrams, we need 36 plates. The corresponding Tesla number is 9, the sum of 3 and 6. We discuss this in 8 Trigrams.pdf. There we argue that the I Ching is symmetrical after all when we look at its hidden symmetry. There are 18 plates or flashcards in the Upper Canon and 18 in the Lower Canon. The number 18 is the number of napkins that Tesla used to clean his plates.
For the quadrigrams, we need ten plates:
- One for Qian 1111.
- One for Kun 0000
- One for Inner Truth 1001.
- One for Inner Strength 0110.
- One to be shared by Before Completion 0101 and After Completion 1010.
- One to be shared by Harmony 1100 and Standstill 0011.
- One to be shared by Return 1000 and Disintegration 0001.
- One to be shared by Encounter 0111 and Resolution 1000.
- One to be shared by The Army 0100 and 0010 Union.
- One to be shared by Fellowship 1011 and 1101 Great Possession.
The quadrigrams fail to make the cut because 10 is 1, which is not divine. Not all n-grams make the cut. The unigrams yin and yang require two plates. The number 2 is not divine either.
In conclusion, as long as we stick to the trigrams and the hexagrams, Tesla’s obsession is fulfilled.