Christmas Eve – The Mathematics of Advent

The 24 doors of Advent calendars. 24 is a highly composite number (divisors: 1,2,3,4,6,8,12,24). It is also 4! (factorial). 24 hours in a day, 24 books in the Iliad and Odyssey, 24 frames per second in film. The number 24 appears in the number of elders in Revelation. On Christmas Eve, we await the birth of a child – a biological process modelled by population growth (logistic equation). The mathematics of waiting (exponential distribution) applies to the anticipation. 359 is the day number; 359 is prime – a prime Christmas Eve.