I think you're getting downvoted for conflating gematria ("bible numerics", although it's originally Jewish) and number theory as the word is understood by (recreational) mathematicians. This is not terribly useful, but it's not the kind of crazy that led to the May 21 prediction.
This was my conclusion as well. I didn't know if I should be sad that people thought I didn't know the difference, or that they thought anyone else reading here wouldn't know the difference and so my comment would lead them astray. I've concluded they thought it was 'mean spirited.' (which was not intended of course but the written word, powerful as it is, has limits)
I have always found the 'meme' "Its all fun and games until someone <dubious and improbable action>" amusing. I was trying to come up with a dubious and improbable action which occurred from the mis-application of arithmetic operations on numbers.
What I have learned from this particular exchange is that people who are fans of number theory are sore about 'numerology' perhaps just like astronomers wince at people who conflate astronomy with astrology. Must be watching too much Big Bang Theory lately.
I thought it was more that HN doesn't have a sense of humor--it has a sense of propriety. The HN calculation for the worth of a comment does not assign a negative value to humor, but it does assign a near-zero value.
Thus, a comment which adds no value will be downvoted; a comment which is funny but has significant worth besides its humor will be upvoted.
I've concluded they thought it was 'mean spirited.'
Actually, I thought you were serious, especially given that you went on to criticize number theory as being impractical. I recommend an application of the ;) next time.
I saw that too, since my pronoun 'it' would be inferred to refer back to the noun 'number theory.' Since when I wrote that note I was thinking 'it' referred back to the analysis of Kaprekar numbers, which I didn't think taught much (but see my note about the process being useful in other pursuits). That was why I went back and edited it to illustrate the 'it' I was referring to. Anyway, packets on the far side of the firewall and all that.
