There are 12 sun signs. When you add in moon signs, the possible combinations = !
Question: When you add in rising sign, the possible combinations = 1,728 (12 x 12 x 12). When you add in the Mercury sign, the possible combinations = 20,736 (12 x 12 x 12 x12). Am I figuring this correctly? If not, would you please give me the correct formula for figuring number of possible combinations.
Answers: When you add in rising sign, the possible combinations = 1,728 (12 x 12 x 12). When you add in the Mercury sign, the possible combinations = 20,736 (12 x 12 x 12 x12). Am I figuring this correctly? If not, would you please give me the correct formula for figuring number of possible combinations.
Well, you're going the right way there, but went off a little when you came to mercury.
There's a few things to consider. Ignore the rising sign for a minute; I'll come to that later on. For the sake of accuracy I'll use Ceres as well - or I would have to drop Pluto... So that's 11 objects to consider...
The sun takes a year to go through the zodiac. That's 12. Now, in each of those 12 signs, the position of mercury could be in 3 different signs. This means that for each combination of sun-mercury, there should be one number. There are 36 combinations of sun-mercury positions. So we have 36.
Now, going to mercury we look at venus. There are 5 different mercury-venus combinations, as the farthest mercury and venus can be apart is in a sextile aspect both ways, venus has a range of 5 signs over mercury. BUT venus can only be about 46° away from the sun. Add that to the appr.70° maximum distance between mercury and venus, you can imagine that certain sun-mercury-venus combinations are simply impossible. For example, when the sun is in 5° libra, and mercury at it's furthest point from the sun, 28° further in the chart, so in 3° scorpio. Venus can only be 46° away from the sun, so venus can only be found at 21° scorpio. That is only 18° away from mercury. On the other side, venus can be found 46° back in the horoscope, at 19° leo. Between 19° leo and 3° scorpio there's a maximum distance of 74°, or just less than 4 signs.
So for each mercury sign, there are 4 different possible venus signs. For each sun sign, there are 3 possible mercury signs. So for each of the 36 sun-mercury combinations, there are 4 venus signs. So; 36 times 4 equals 144.
From then on, it is quite easy. For mars, multiply by 12. For jupiter, multiply by 12. And so on.
Eventually you'll be left with;
(12*3*4*12*12*12*12*12*12*12) ---------- (sun*merc*ven*mars*cere*jupi*sat*uran*ne... --------- (12*3*4*12^7)
EQUALS 5,159,780,352 different options!
Now... there's still the moon and the rising. I'm keeping the rising for last. But I just wanted to stress; for every different position of all the other objects in the zodiac, because it moves so fast, the moon is in all 12 signs. So the moon should go last in the calculation... although it's position doesn't really matter because they are all twelves anyway.
So, with all the positions of all 11 objects I've used in all possible combinations, the result would be (12*3*4*12^8), or 61,917,364,224 .... I'd say it's safe to say that with only the planet-sign compositions, there is a 1 in 61 billion chance that you share the same combination with someone else - unless they are born on exactly the same day, of course.
Without Ceres, there would be a 1 in 5 billion chance. Just under the world population, so yes, there would be maybe 1 other person with exactly the same chart as yours.
Now, the rising... this is a great variable, especially depending on the house system you use. I usually use topocentric, which is similar to the placidus system when it comes to the position of the house cusps. Even with the sun in the same sign as the rising, the sun can still be in 3 different houses approximately. The same goes for all the other planets and semi-planets and other celestial objects used in astrology. But to keep it simple, I'll use the equal house system as an example. In that system, every object can only be in 2 different houses when the rising is in 1 sign.
That means that there are 24 different combinations altogether when it comes just to the houses. Now... multiply that by the number of possible object-sign positions, and you have your grand total of 1,486,016,741,376 possibilities!
... compared to a total of 2,229,025,112,064 possibilities if you would have used a different system. Not to mention the position of the MC...
Yes Janet , you are doing it correctly theoritically . However , do remember that with venus and gemini , they can not be more than one sign away from the sun . So practically speaking , you can use the above way to calculation the possible combinations of sun, moon, mars, jupiter.....but it wont be applied for mercury and venus . Hence, the actual combination would be less than the theoritical one. I am sure I am correct, but since this is complicated math I am not sure if I can give a correct formula, but it should be
12 x 12 x 12 x 12 ...and x 3 for mercury and venus ( since eg a cancer sun may have venus gemini/leo/cancer , the same with mercury)
EDIT : I will ask someone in the math department tomorrow and come back to you with an answer :) but i am pretty sure I got it right. Sorry I am not trained to tackle hard math , we are trained to be good at enough at math so we can inject a correct dose of morphin into someone - hehe
EDIT : here is the formula ( by the way if the sun is 1 degree in one sign , then venus could be 2 signs back away from the sun, for example, if the sun is 1 degree in cancer , then venus could be , at its maximal distance , at 15 degree in taurus ) or it could be one sign after and at 17 degree in Leo. This hold trues when the sun is at 29 degree in one sign , this time venus could be 2 signs ahead of the sun and one sign behind.) So yeah, we can have 4 possible venus for every sun sign
Sun x moon x mars x venus x mercury x saturn x jupiter x uranus x neptune x pluto x rising = 12 x 12 x 12 x 4 x 3 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 = 12^10 = 61,917,364,224.
almost 62 billion possible combination.
Hi Janet..
My forte at school was maths.........( pinochio nose here eh eh).
Take the amount of people living on earth today...that should give you a fairly accurate number ( not that many babies would be born in exactly the same place at exactly the same time and minute) + houses will vary according to countries (planets near cusps etc).
Take the number of all the people who died before us.........that is pretty infinite....
And make a guess about future generations.........
Now I leave you at that :-))))!!
12x`12 x12 x12x plus future generation