Thursday, 8 March 2007

1+1=2?

One, two, three... Like a, b, c...

I am numbers. I am my social security number, my ID number, my student ID number, my bank account number, the bar code on everything I like to eat, the number of my sit in the theater, my telephone number, the number of the metro line I use everyday...

I like numbers. In my mind they match and they combine in a magic way. I can easily remember a phone number or anything having to do with them. Music can be expressed in a mathematic way. Even God can be expressed in numbers -One...Or maybe the size of those who believe.

What is the number for sorrow? Or maybe for happiness... For curiosity? For moments of brilliance, or stupidity or maybe for making love?

To the vast majority of people around us we are just a number. A walkie-talkie bar code. We are treated like numbers; there's always someone above us on the list, someone next and someone who will take our place when we leave this place. This world we've created wants us "decoded", analyzed into other numbers. This world we've created wants us to express through numbers, to eliminate every trace of soul, thought, sentiment...

We feel. Let's not end up calculating. Accountancy is so boring...
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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Number for sorrow? Don't know.
Number for love? Yes.

There are some pairs of numbers which share a unique mutual bond with each other.
The sum of the proper divisors of the one is equal to the other, and vice versa.

That means, that both are build from the others parts... (romantic, eh?)

And not only that. They share many more mystical properties according to the Pythagoreans.

In every known case, the numbers of a pair are either both even or both odd. It is not known whether an even-odd pair of amicable numbers exist.
(opposites might be attracted but do they find love?)

Also, every known pair shares at least one common factor.

They are called "φίλοι αριθμοί" (Amicable numbers).

220 and 284 are the first lovers that were revealed.

Don't they look cute?

15 March 2007 at 08:44
industrialdaisies said...

Amicable numbers... Yes, I remember once upon a time someone I love talking about them... The grandiose of Mathematics... I love it! Many unanswered fields though.

For example: Does "284" impose itself on "220" as a greater number? Or is there "equality" in their relationship? In that case do we end up to the conclusion "284=220"?

I know, I know I shouldn't screw up every well-functioning relationship; it's just that I like provoking chaos... And yes, I think that they look peculiarly not cute but beautiful.

15 March 2007 at 12:27

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