The 47 Conspiracy

[starbuck]

I think it's funny that the number 47 comes so frequently in Next Generation and later Star Trek series, but is it also in Battlestar Galactica? I remember hearing 47 a couple of times throughout the miniseries.

 

[Avon]

I've never heard of this before. I Googled it and was surprised by what I saw, its very strange. Not just Trek but many tv shows and movies seem to use it quite a bit.

Also some strange reasons for it, such as :
"47 appears to be the quintessential random number of the universe. In other words, when a number appears randomly, more often than not, that number is 47"

Eh?

 

[Jetfreak]

I really hope that "warbird" in the Kelvin Timeline is a generic word for a Klingon ship.

The thought of 47 Klingon Warbirds destroyed by the Narada is jarring. Maybe it was 46 scouts and 1 cruiser.

 

[CABAL]

Oh, I know this one! One of the early TNG writers went to Pomona College in California. At Pomona, decades earlier, Professor Donald Bentley made a fake proof 'proving' that all numbers were equal to 47 to demonstrate how mathematical proofs work, this one being an example of a false proof. Students enjoyed it, however, and the fake proof went on to become a meme, culminating in the founding of The 47 Society, a club based on said meme. Anyway, said writer brought the meme with him and it spread to the other writers, persisting in Trek long after he left.

 

[starbuck]

Which writer was it? If it was Ronald D Moore that would explain BSG.

 

[CABAL]

Which writer was it? If it was Ronald D Moore that would explain BSG.

It was Joe Menosky, actually. Looks like I had the timeline slightly off, too, since he didn't start writing until TNG season 4.