Number
&
Signs

You know,

the world of numbers really seems to go on forever.

It's pretty awesome when you think of the range and scale

of what we use numbers for.

We have numbers to use when we count all the stars

that exist in what seems like a sky full of galaxies,

and can even count all the atomic particles they contain

and still we don't run out of numbers.

The universe of numbers can take you

in a practical way

to places you can't see at all and can only imagine.

But through it all,

in its farthest reaches

you can still see those same first few signs

that we used in the beginning,

for the numbers and the ways they interact.

The world of number is so vast

that it can seem overwhelming,

but those first few ideas and processes can still be seen,

the ways we calculate.

Whether it's galaxies or atoms,

you find plus and minus, divide and multiply.

And as numbers get bigger

maths has magical manoeuvres to simplify them.

You can shrink numbers to a small space using powers,

like 10 to the 6th is a million,

just add one zero and it's 10 to the 60th

a one with sixty zeroes,

add another and you've got 600 zeroes,

and it's all summed up in that tiny space,

not much more than is needed for the 10.

Simple,

but quickly taking us way beyond the universe in which we seem to live.

There are numbers bigger than the number for every atom in the known universe,

so what can they possibly refer to.

Even something as simple as the number line, 0123456789 etc.,

can quickly stretch out so far

that the numbers are almost too large to imagine,

yet at what seems like the edge of the number universe

there are still ways to explore for landmarks,

like those extraordinary giant primes,

numbers so incredibly huge, yet indivisible,

building blocks for a universe

greater than ours.

And it's not just big things that maths can make look small.

Maths can use simple signs for some very slippery, complicated things,

like Pi, or infinity,

or the square root of -1

all of them easy enough to write down,

but which have more mystery in them

than we will ever understand.

The world of number bridges between

the seemingly solid world we live in,

and the world of our imagination

and the way that we experience our lives.

The world of number

is there for us to look outward and inward

in awe and wonder,

knowing that whatever we can count to,

we can be sure that God is Greater.