Why do opposite sides of a die always add up to 7?

At least since 1600 BC, opposite sides of a die add up to seven. What is the reason? There are several explanations, and only one seems correct.

If you take any givenyou will see that opposite sides add up to seven. The opposite of 1 is 6, 2 is 5, and 3 is 4. Curiously, in Asia 1 and 6 are interchanged, but the rule works the same.

Although this rule has not changed since the ancient Greeks 3,600 years ago, it has not always been this way. According to account IFL Scienceat some times in the Middle Ages, there were consecutive numbers on opposite sides. In Egypt and Sumeria, random patterns were used.

Why do opposite sides of a die add up to seven?

If you search for the answer on the Internet, you will find several different reasons. A very widespread one is that in this way, Even if the die is damaged due to a manufacturing defect and loses a face, we will know what number is therelooking at the opposite.

Another possible reason is so that the numbers are as spread out as possibleand one is not more likely than others, even if it is a minimal difference.

Both versions, associated with manufacturing errors or probabilities and statistics, do not work when this custom of the opposite sides of a die adding up sevenwas already used thousands of years ago, and those concepts did not exist. The first dice with this rule dates back to 1600 BC, in Egypt..

Osteoarchaeologist Hans Christian Küchelmann believes that to find the answer, you have to get into the minds of the ancient Greeks and Egyptiansand how they understood the numbers.

For them the “harmony” of the numbers had more value than the value itself. For example, getting three threes in a row. Furthermore, prime numbers fascinated them, and seven is one.

“That the opposite sides of a die add up to seven is the only possibility of arranging the numbers 1 to 6 in pairs symmetrically. Any other arrangement would result in different sums for the opposite sides. And, of course, seven is a prime number and, therefore, of special mathematical significance,” explains Küchelmann in your studio.

Whether or not the reason was real, the truth is that everyone liked it, to the point that in some countries there were laws that prohibited the use of dice that did not comply with “the rule of seven.”

The dice They are thousands of years old, and it is curious to discover that this rule that opposite sides add up to sevenalthough it is not necessary, because the numbering of the faces does not influence the probability, has remained unchanged for millennia.

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