Friday, January 30, 2015

Numbers

Normally I'm not one for dwelling much upon numbers. I've never had much talent for them. Somehow they always manage to slip away.

But over the last couple of days I seem to have had more dealings than usual with them, and it's not all been negative. An interesting discussion yesterday with a class as to whether numbers exist in any real sense at all led me to the realisation that, whilst I've not become a full-blown Platonist in any sense, I can now feel something of what, I suppose, our Greek friend felt concerning the Forms - at least as far as these particular forms are concerned. There's something very comforting, I find, about the idea that good old pi will still be around when I'm not.

And then today I've been concerned with the stark reality of big numbers (well, big ones for me) as reflected in terms of cold hard cash. You don't get much more real than that, eh? Or much less. Hah!

I suppose as long as we remember that all our days are numbered it keeps it all in proportion.

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