There is always nothing,
but
nothing
is one idea,
and
nothing and one
are two ideas,
and
nothing and one and two
are three ideas…
Thus the natural numbers flash on like stars in the void; one by one at first, then bursting to light along the path of reason’s arrow, flying true from nothing to infinity.
They are as diamonds laid out for some goddess queen, to count and measure and delight in the abstract arithmetic of their perfect procession. To arrange them in triangles and squares and pentagons and every possible polygon; a satisfying sequence of shapes perfect in both regularity and predictability. To – like Adam in Eden – name by their aspects the odds and evens, the amicable, the sociable, the perfect, the pluperfect and the superperfect.
Meeting the twins and triplets, the friendly and their clubs, the solitary, the abundant and the sadly deficient. Not a single one can not be interesting, but a few seem to shine brighter, and reward the curious with riches beyond measure: Indivisible, the primes multiply to spawn all others with unique predictability, but guard their own hidden path, teasing instead with phantoms of pattern and motif in their adamantine scaffold on which this entire universe rests. Twinned, factorial, primorial, even illegal – to know them is to love them above all others, to feverishly seek out their many secrets, to desire their collection in ever greater numbers.
However, satisfaction beyond mere appreciation lies in teasing out the patterns and connections; to guess, infer, deduce, surmise and hypothesise, and finally to work out and prove with logical certainty. Then return to the same arguments, contemplate, refine, purify and distil them down to elegant brevity; to expose the stark beauty of absolute truth, like glimpsing the thoughts of God.
TWISTED::COLON 