We Like the Thought of Threes

In the final analysis, though, it’s the idea of a pattern that makes threes such a popular mechanism. Even though patterns can vary, appearing as sequences, chronologies, lists, definitions, classifications or series, for instance, they create frameworks that become memorable and contain transitions that tie three words, phrases or ideas together. Even our brains are wired for threes. “Stunning new visuals of the brain reveal a deceptively simple pattern of organization in the wiring of this complex organ. Instead of nerve fibers travelling willy-nilly through the brain like spaghetti, as some imaging has suggested, the new portraits reveal two-dimensional sheets of parallel fibers crisscrossing other sheets at right angles in a gridlike structure that folds and contorts with the convolutions of the brain. This same pattern appeared in the brains of humans, rhesus monkeys, owl monkeys, marmosets and galagos, researchers report Thursday in the journal Science. ‘The upshot is the fibers of the brain form a 3-D grid and are organized in this exceptionally simple way,’ study leader Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, told LiveScience. ‘This motif of crossing in three axes is the basic motif of brain tissue,’" reports Stephanie Pappas at LiveScience. Perhaps we are hard wired for threes, making them natural, abundant and recurring. Beyond the science, though, threes have a rhythm and flow that are comfortable to the mind, the eye and the ear. Threes are social and timeless and inescapable. We embrace ideas given to us in threes.  Lewis Carroll said, “What I tell you in threes is true.” We like the thought of it. 

From Threes, Chapter Eleven, “Threes Forever” 

The Tipping Point Has Threes

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the best-selling The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference contends the Tipping Point is determined by three factors. 


The first, the Law of the Few, identifies three agents of change who are responsible for moving to and across The Tipping Point.  These change agents are connectors or those individuals who are skilled at networking; mavens or those to whom others go for information, and salesmen or those with charisma and personality to persuade others.  The second is the Stickiness Factor, which is determined by the content of the message and how it resonates in a society.  Gladwell’s third factor in reaching the Tipping Point is the Power of Context.  Context is a critical part of any communication that seeks to educate or persuade.  It relies on local conditions and circumstances for its power. 


There’s more in the book.     

The Perfect Wave

A prescient and popular Alvin Toffler (1928—) talks about waves in his book The Third Wave, published in 1980, that describes the transition in developed countries from industrial societies, which he calls the "Second Wave," to information age "Third Wave" societies. Toffler is a social scientist, futurist, author and lecturer. He has been called the third most influential voice in business after Bill Gates and Peter Drucker.    

Toffler describes three types of societies based on the concept of waves. Each wave pushes older societies and cultures aside. The First Wave is the settled agricultural society that replaced nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles. The Second Wave began in western Europe with the Industrial Revolution and spread quickly across much of the world. A Second Wave society includes the nuclear family, a factory-type education system and the corporation.

“In short one could move systematically through the entire code book of Second Wave civilization—from standardization to synchronization right on down to centralization, maximization, specialization, and concentration—and show, item by item, how the old ground rules that governed our daily lives and our social decision-making are in the process of being revolutionized as Third Wave civilization sweeps in.”

from Threes, Chapter 1, “The Wonder of Threes”