a factor of 10001 (the other being 73) and the repdigit 11111111 (= 10001 × 1111).
using two radii to divide a circle according to the golden ratio yields sectors of approximately 137.51° (the golden angle) and 222° in degree system so 137 is the largest integer before it.
In decimal notation, 1/137 = 0.007 299 27, so its period value happens to be palindromic and has a period length of only 8. However, this is only special to decimal, as in pentadecimal it (1/92) has a period length of twenty-four (24) and the period value is not at all palindromic.
a combination of 5! + 4! - 3! - 2! + 1!
The golden angle, b ≈ 137.508°
Physics
1/137 was once thought to be the exact value of the fine-structure constant. The fine-structure constant, a dimensionless physical constant, is approximately 1/137, and the astronomer Arthur Eddington conjectured in 1929 that its reciprocal was in fact precisely the integer 137, which he claimed could be "obtained by pure deduction".[8] This conjecture was not widely adopted, and by the 1940s, the experimental values for the constant were clearly inconsistent with the conjecture, being roughly 1/137.036.[9] In 2021, researchers at the Kastler Brossel Laboratory in Paris reported the most precise measurement yet, determining the value to be 137.035999206 with an accuracy of 81 parts per trillion.[10]
Physicist Leon M. Lederman numbered his home near Fermilab 137 based on the significance of the number to those in his profession. Lederman expounded on the significance of the number in his 1993 book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?, noting that not only was it the inverse of the fine-structure constant, but was also related to the probability that an electron will emit or absorb a photon—i.e., Feynman's conjecture.[n 1] He added that it also "contains the crux of electromagnetism (the electron), relativity (the velocity of light), and quantum theory (the Planck constant). It would be less unsettling if the relationship between all these important concepts turned out to be one or three or maybe a multiple of pi. But 137?" The number 137, according to Lederman, "shows up naked all over the place", meaning that scientists on any planet in the universe using whatever units they have for charge or speed, and whatever their version of the Planck constant may be, will all come up with 137, because it is a pure number. Lederman recalled that Richard Feynman had even suggested that all physicists put a sign in their offices with the number 137 to remind them of just how much they do not know.[11]
Psychology and mysticism
137 has been the subject of psychological speculation by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung concerning his theory of synchronicity. Jung and physicist Wolfgang Pauli, according to the book Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession by Arthur I. Miller, Emeritus Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London, Jung and Pauli struggled in their search for a primal number that everything in the world hinges on, as well as a desire to quantify the unconscious.[12][13]
The Bible says that Ishmael,[14]Levi[15] and Amram[16] all lived to be 137 years old. The three appearances make it the most common lifespan of individuals in the Bible.
According to the verse in Genesis (17:17) there was a ten-year age gap between Abraham and Sarah. Sarah died at the age of 127 (Genesis 23:1), thus Abraham was 137 years old at her death. According to Rashi's commentary on Genesis 23:2, Sarah died when she heard that Isaac had almost been sacrificed, thus Abraham was 137 years old at the Binding of Isaac.
The number of atoms in a chlorophyll molecule, for which the chemical formula is C55H72MgN4O5.
Rick Sanchez, a fictional character from the Adult Swim animated television series Rick and Morty, is from a version of the universe numbered C-137, and is sometimes referred to as "C-137" in contexts where "Rick" would be ambiguous (there being multiple universes).
There are 137 islands in the Hawaiian island chain, of which eight are considered major islands.
^"There is a most profound and beautiful question associated with the observed coupling constant, e, the amplitude for a real electron to emit or absorb a real photon. It is a simple number that has been experimentally determined to be close to −0.08542455. (My physicist friends won't recognize this number, because they like to remember it as the inverse of its square: about 137.03597 with about an uncertainty of about 2 in the last decimal place. It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it.) Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to p or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil". We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!" — R. P. Feynman, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
^Helge Kragh, "Magic Number: A Partial History of the Fine-Structure Constant", Archive for History of Exact Sciences57:5:395 (July, 2003) doi:10.1007/s00407-002-0065-7
