Running Numbers

A scholarly look at the digits that matter.

by Nick Norlen

5 Number of days a week Temple Law student and newly crowned Running Numbers Treasure Run winner Erin Worrell takes the subway to class, which makes her prize — a chestful of SEPTA tokens — even sweeter. Using all of her cunning, Erin provided the correct answer — "A politically correct Benjamin Franklin would have said a good conscience is like a perpetual holiday" — even before the end of the business day. Despite the twist on the Poor Richard's quotation, she had no doubts about the appropriate wording of the response: "By now I've heard enough about the supposed 'War on Christmas' that the answer seemed pretty obvious." Touché, Ms. Worrell. Next time I won't make it so easy.

750,000 Approximate number of objects and illustrations in the African American Museum in Philadelphia's collection chronicling the story of the black Diaspora. The museum will be "sharing the heritage" Jan. 21 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, featuring a historical re-enactor, music and dance performances, and the We Feed Our People homeless outreach project. There's also going to be something involving pantomime, but let's focus on the positives, as the good doctor would have wanted. Even though he hated mimes.

2 Number of women who will be feted during "Franklin's Legacy: Celebrating Women in Science," an extension of the Benjamin Franklin birthday festivities featuring leading limnologist Dr. Ruth Patrick and Dr. Virginia Lee, an international authority on neurodegenerative disorders who will deliver the second of two free seminars starting at 9 a.m. Jan. 17 at Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut St., followed by a wreath-laying at Franklin's grave at Fifth and Arch streets. Just like Franklin to celebrate his birthday with two women. He was a sucker for the scholarly types.

46 Number of minutes, according to my page-a-day calendar, of the first flight of the New World — a hot-air balloon trip taken on Jan. 9, 1793, by Jean Pierre Blanchard from Philadelphia's Walnut Street Prison across the Delaware River to Woodbury, N.J. Now that beats the pants off the Tacony-Palmyra.

27 Number of years the Philadelphia City Planning Commission wants you to look into the future for its series of "Imagine Philadelphia" meetings, where participants will envision "what the city's neighborhoods, skyline, parks and business districts might look like in 2035." Upcoming meetings will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 22 at the PA Convention Center; Jan. 29 at the Center in the Park Auditorium, 5818 Germantown Ave.; and Jan. 31 at the Roxborough Memorial Hospital, 5800 Ridge Ave. My vision of Philly's future? Definitely filled with Frenchmen-flown hot-air balloon ferries to Jersey. And back, please.