21 ---- Why "21" ?

(another pondering by your friendly neighborhood OVER-thinker)

Ever wonder "who" decided on "21" as the pivotal age ?

Why 21 ? It's an odd number... (Like becoming a "teenager" is an odd number =13)

There must be a reason behind these age choices by the big "mucky mucks" who chose them and voted those ages in.

Any ideas on the origins for the choice of 21 for drinking and gambling and whatever else is ok when one turns 21 ? Why not 20 ? That's a nice even number.

(These are things that cross my mind when I say happy birthday to someone who says "I'm finally 21 !" - like they've reached a "magical age")

If I'm not mistaken isn't the legal drinking age in Great Britain only 18?

Seems odd that in this country you can vote for the president and serve in the armed forces (to possibly die) all at the age of 18 (actually as young as 17 for the military). So why 21 for drinking? Why not 18, or even 30?

Most places outside of the US allow drinking at age 18.

Thus bringing me back to my initial question - Why 21 ?

Who came up with 21 ? Surely a bunch of beards sat around and decided 21 over 20 or 22... but who and why ?

In my province of Ontario, the age is 19; in the neighbouring province of Ontario, the age is 18. I didn't know this, oddly enough, until I got my driver's license. Shows how much I care.

Let's face it though, most people don't wait till 21...

Funny story my daughter will turn 21 in July. She will be 5 months pregnant....she will not be drinking any alcohol until she is done breast feeding....probably after her 22nd birthday! She has had a few sips of wine already and isn't really that excited about drinking though. Still I thought it was kind of funny.

That reminds me of all those teen years where I couldn't wait to snag a beer legally when I finally reached 21, or go to Vegas and pull slots....

Then I came to faith at 19 - I had ZERO desire to do either of those when I turned 21.    Ironic eh ?

Don't get me wrong, as I got much older in my walk, I, in my freedom in Christ, have thrown a few back (without excess towards getting drunk) and I've pulled many a slot machines. : But as a new believer back then, I felt that "Sacrifice was obedience" -- as I grew older in Him, I learned that obedience is better than sacrifice.

Turning 21 meant nothing to me. It came and went almost 25 years ago.  Funny.

So I did some surface scratching research:

"National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984" This law basically told states that they had to enact a minimum drinking age of 21 or lose up to ten percent of their federal highway funding.
The concept that a person becomes a full adult at age 21 dates back centuries in English common law; 21 was the age at which a person could, among other things, vote and become a knight. Since a person was an official adult at age 21, it seemed to make sense that they could drink then, too.

Interesting, but still doesn't explain why "21" was the magic number.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

So I did some surface scratching research:

"National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984" This law basically told states that they had to enact a minimum drinking age of 21 or lose up to ten percent of their federal highway funding.
The concept that a person becomes a full adult at age 21 dates back centuries in English common law; 21 was the age at which a person could, among other things, vote and become a knight. Since a person was an official adult at age 21, it seemed to make sense that they could drink then, too.

Interesting, but still doesn't explain why "21" was the magic number.

I saw something on the History Channel that said the aliens told us that 21 was the magic age.

If you think about it, 13 does make sense for becoming a teenager since it is the first number to end in -teen.  But yeah, 21...  I'm sure someone had a good reason at some point.  When my wife turned 21 she was living in a college dorm across the street from a 7-11 and she said she had this strong desire to go over and buy beer just because she could.  I had another friend who started working as a security guard when he was 18.  The funny thing was he could carry a gun, but his mommy and daddy had to buy the bullets because the law in our state at the time was that you could purchase and carry a gun at 18, but you could not buy ammo until you were 21.

^ Funny & fascinating !

Not sure about the aliens thing, though it sounds plausible, but the irony of things like "not being able to vote yet, but being able to go die for our country" - these enigmas blow me away.

Dem aliens...

xenonlion wrote:

Dem aliens...

Yup

xenonlion wrote:

Dem aliens...

Yes!  That's the guy!  He's a genius!

messiaen77 wrote:

xenonlion wrote:

Dem aliens...

Yes!  That's the guy!  He's a genius!

Heheh. I've seen some of his stuff. It's crazy. I remember one where he said how aliens gave the Egyptians the idea of the pyramid or something. It's been a while. Lots of crazy ideas, though.

The reason the drinking age is 21 is due to the Romans during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.  Marcus and some of his high mucky muck advisers were playing Blackjack at their favorite casino, Rome For the Win.  During conversation one high mucky muck started lamenting about the rampant public drunkenness of Rome's youth.  The others quickly agreed it was a problem and something should be done about it. 

High mucky muck #2 suggested imposing an age limit on the consumption of alcohol.  Agreement once again went around the table.  But what should this age be? None could agree what the age limit should. 13 didn't solve anything.  40 was just silly.  The debate continued on through the night.  It's a good thing casinos are open 24/7.

Several hours and dealers later, Marcus was tired of bickering and weeping and gnashing of teeth.  He said, "I'm going to play one more hand of Blackjack.  Whatever the total number of my cards, Win, Bust or Draw, that shall be the new drinking age for Rome.  And the rest of the known world."

I don't have to tell you that he got a Blackjack and that's why the legal drinking age is 21.

                   
                   

Well... Marcus was born in 121

The reasons for 21 being the chosen number for the age of drinking is this:

Twenty-one is the fifth discrete Semiprime and the second in the (3.q) family. With 22 it forms the second discrete Semiprime pair. As it is a semiprime with both its prime factors being Gaussian primes, 21 is then a Blum integer.
Twenty-one is a Fibonacci number, a Harshad number, a Motzkin number, a triangular number and an octagonal number, as well as a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 3 and 7.
21 is the sum of the first six natural numbers (1+2+3+4+5+6=21), making it a triangular number.
21 has an aliquot sum of 11 though it is the second composite number found in the 11-aliquot tree with the abundant square prime 18 being the first such member. Twenty-one is the first number to be the aliquot sum of three numbers 18, 51, 91.
21 appears in the Padovan sequence, preceded by the terms 9, 12, 16 (it is the sum of the first two of these).
The sum of divisors for the integers 1 through 6 is 21.
21 is the smallest non-trivial example of a Fibonacci number whose digits are Fibonacci numbers and whose digit sum is also a Fibonacci number.
21 is a repdigit in base 4 (1114).
21 is the smallest natural number that is not close to a power of 2, 2n, where the range of closeness is ±n.
21 is the smallest number of differently sized squares needed to square the square.

Now that's just plain silly talk.