Number
&
Signs

You know, when people first started using numbers

they counted with their fingers,

and if you use your fingers in certain ways

you can get them to count much higher than ten.

Or they would use stones

moved from place to place to work with big numbers.

Long before people had calculators and computers

they learned to use an abacus to speed up their sums.

But for a long time, when people wanted to calculate

they wrote it all out in words.

What made maths look much more like it is used today

was when people started using signs for the numbers,

and signs for the things numbers do together,

the ways they act with each other,

the way that they add and multiply.

And some of those action signs,

the minus and divide,

only work in one direction.

The action signs have an order to them.

It's not just that they only go one way,

they also have to be used in a certain order.

Some things have to be done first if the math is to work,

especially when doing things with a string of numbers.

So they started using brackets to make it clear

which actions to do in which order,

to get a string of numbers down to the one number that it equals.

And they added to all those signs

that most important sign in maths,

a sign for the key to proving things,

the equals sign,

like the point of a balance,

which only has the same value on each side.

So if A=B, and B=C,

then you also know for sure that A=C.

That's the magic of the equals sign,

equations.

And calculators can do the sums for them

but people really need to first know how the math works,

at least enough to be able to estimate the answer,

to check in their heads if the calculator seems right.

A calculator will only do as it is told,

so it's important to be able to notice if

it seems to have been told the wrong thing.

Now calculators work easily with decimals,

but calculations in your head are often easier using fractions,

and the real fun of playing with numbers

is when you do it in your head,

which is why it helps if you know your multiplication tables.

Then slowly you get to know how numbers work,

and then begin to see that numbers can show

things that can't be seen in the world around you.

People have no problem imagining

minus numbers,

or numbers that fall into some kind of gap between numbers,

never quite one number or another,

never quite dividing into one fraction or another,

like the number we call Pi.

Numbers show us that there are spaces between the worlds,

that we cannot see but only imagine,

and muslims know that God has numbered everything in Creation,

even the things we can only imagine,

and they know that [Hu] is the Liege of all the worlds.