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4
‘Di gital’ Roots

In the last chapter it was shown that numbers consisting
entirely of nines have properties peculiar to themselves. The
digit g is, of all the digits, the most persistent, and many other
numbers can be reduced to or shown to have an affinity for g
in a number of ways. For a full appreciation of these facts, it
is necessary to understand the process of extracting digital
roots.

The digital root of any number consists of only one digit.
There are thus only nine different roots possible, but these
few roots can be made to perform a lot of work. The digital
root of a number is obtained by adding its digits together and
treating the resulting number in the same way until, after a
certain number of stages, the final number consists of only
one digit. This final number is the digital root of the original
number.

The digital root of the number 6542807 is therefore
obtained thus:

(@) 64+5+44+2+8+0+7=32
(6) 3+2=5

Roots can be also calculated as being the remainder when a
number is divided by 9, except where that number is exactly
divisible by 9. If a number is exactly divisible by 9, then there
is no remainder, but it is obvious that no number can have
nought as its digital root since the latter is the sum of
individual digits. In point of fact, all numbers which are
exactly divisible by g also have g as their digital root (i.e.
18 has 14-8=9; 378 has 3+7+8=18, and 1 +8=g).
38