I always felt the origin of the equals sign was wonderful: "I will sette as I doe often in woorke use, a paire of parralles, or Gemowe lines of one lengthe, thus : ==, bicause noe 2, thynges, can be moare equalle."
It's what permits those two lines to be essentially irreducibly perfect in describing "the same" that fascinates me. Any 'samer' and they would converge and simply be -.
The opposite of something. It's only when we can separate nothing, that we can begin to describe something.
(And is the universe the mathematical manifestation of everything that isn't nothing?) /stoner
