Wow. A picture of a box made out of sticks, eh? Really boring, eh? YOU HAVE NO IDEA how wrong you are! This ain't your granddaddy's math. In fact, this isn't the atrocious garbage that was perpetrated on me in the American public school system when I was a kid...how to do things in a rote manner to come up with some kind of meaningless answer so they could give the little monkey (me) a bananna (in the form of a good letter grade on my report card). "That's a good little monkey. You regurgitated the answer we wanted you to regurgitate."
Nope. This is about some of the most fascinating stuff in this universe...if you love knowledge...if you love truth...if you love to think outside the box. Let's begin:
1.618 - just a meanless number with a decimal, right? Let me tell you something amazing. Stop and think about this: 1.618 is referred to as the "golden mean". It is kinda like magic...kinda. It puzzles the most astute mathematicians. This ratio, 1.618, occurs in nature, throughout nature, almost everywhere, in fact. Why? That's a mystery of sorts. It occurs in 1) the fractional geometry of ferns (of all things), 2) the atomic structures of DNA, 3) the orbital patterns of galaxies. This number is resonant in creation from little plants on Earth to galaxies, millions of light years away!
Architects with a keen sense of scale, and proportion, often gravitate toward this ratio. Have you ever looked at a huge building, and it just look "right"? Yeah, the spacing between bricks, the proportions, the "everything" about that building is pleasing to the eye. You glance at it and just know it is right. This is often based on the fact that the spacings and patterns are based on a ratio of 1.618. The Egyptians knew this when they built the pyramids thousands of years ago. Go figure.
The Masons have known this for hundreds of years. No, not the guy Ralph who helped built your patio. I mean "the Masons". The ratio of 1.618 may be found in the dogma and rituals of the Order of the Eastern Star, a female auxillary of the Masons.
Other numbers, or mathematical values, are resonant in nature. The number "7", for instance. The Bible calls it the "number of completion", and it is resonant throughout Scripture, and creation.
What is a "number", anyway? Like the word "time", the word "number" is used by so many people, flippantly, on a day-to-basis. I am not being critical. We live in a practical, day-to-day world. We have to measure things, right? But, in a greater sense, these day-to-day people, when they refer to a number, have NO IDEA what they are talking about.
"Math" is not "numbers". "Math" is hard to define. I am not an academic, and I certainly am not a mathematician, so I will refrain from definitions I don't understand. Here is my sales guy from Pittsburgh definition of math (a definition that is evolving): "The study of 'what is', as it exists in the 3 dimensions that are currently discernible by mankind (there are most likely more than 3 dimensions, but that is a "tangent" [get it, "tangent", ha ha] that I won't go off on right now). The point is, creation can be readily observed and quantified in 3 dimensions. The world we see and live in is seen as 3 dimensions.
So in mathematics, you will find the most fascinating concepts and ideas imaginable in the natural world. As a discipline, math truly is the most transcendent academic field, being found in every single field of study, yet the pathetic public schools I went to treated it as a compartmentalized subject.
Math can be thought of spatially, in 3 dimensions as just stated, which is why I can have that 3 dimensional picture of a box at the beginning of this blog, and you all (hopefully) "get it". You fundamentally understand what a 3 dimensional box is. But, that simply means you DON'T understand what is beyond that. That box may represent nowhere near the complexity that is found in all the dimensions that really exist. It is all we are capable of representing.
Math is space. Math is time. Math is relationships. Math is order. Math is even disorder. Chew on that a while.
So, I want to mention Dr. John Stillwell, of the University of San Francisco. Google him. He spoke to the SETI Institute about the subject, "ET Math: How different could it be?". Yes, it is based on the idea that extraterrestrials would not use our math, and NO he is not a crackpot UFO cooke. John is a distinguished professor, and his real point is not actually extraterrestrials, it is about our concept of mathematics. Mathematics, per se, is a human construct. It is a product of our minds. We do not LEARN algebra, or trigonometry, or calculus, in actuality. We learn a human way of trying to understand reality.
Listen to this, so you don't miss the point...these are manmade constructs, disciplines devised by humans that allow us to, as much as possible, understand mathematical reality...don't breeze by this. Think about what you just read. WE ARE LIMITED IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF MATH, OF ALL REALITY IN FACT, IF WE ALLOW OUR PARADIGMS TO BE SET BY HUMAN BEINGS, BASED ON THE LIMITED MEANS THEY HAVE HERETOFORE DEVISED TO UNDERSTAND THAT REALITY.
Although some scientists are trying to make radio contact with ETs so as to speak with them in a mathematical language, Stillwell asserts (correctly, in my view) that they most likely don't even use our math, may not understand that human construct called "numbers" and cannot communicate with us in our own, unique gibberish. Math is reality, it is physical creation, and their race would have found their own, unique entries into it's truth. We human who are courageous, outside-the-box thinkers, should endeavors to continue to explore the great, untapped riches of this fascinating universe. But, to do that, we can learn what researchers have to pass on to us, but never, ever accept that as the confine in which we live or think. Then, we have become adult versions of that little monkey in 8th grade math class, taught by a teacher who himself is a trained monkey. There is so much more out there than this feeble existence. Find it.
