What I know about maths could fit on one hand, both hands, at a stretch.
The first one that boggles my mind is the Fibonacci numbers that are Nature’s numbering system.
Another example is from The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. In it, there’s mention made of Fermat’s Last Theorem, which Lisbeth Salander attacks with relish. It’s round about here that my grey matter literally freezes and I’m not joking – I can almost feel my brain kick into neutral. There’s actually little wonder that I spend so much time at the water cooler, my brain grinds to a halt so often that I need to drink lots of water to lubricate it to start functioning again!
Having said this, I do believe that the Fibonacci numbers do kind of, sort of, make sense. There’s symmetry in there that appeals to my rather particular warped logic. All of these equations point to connections that are just there or have been there all along if we just choose to open ourselves up to this magic.
Here’s why I think this:
I’m history mad. When it comes to my forefathers, colour me fascinated. Racial memory, call it what you will, whenever I hear about certain ancient tribes, something resonates within me. One particular example of this is the Vikings. I watch a series called Vikings. I see how fierce they were but also discover that they were also interested in farming and fertile earth and all good things. I see some of their rituals which are, to put it politely, rather brutal.
Not one week later, I start watching another series, Shetland and in the second episode, it shows a centuries old Scottish festival called, wait for it, Up Helly Aa. Part of the festival involves the dragging of a galley through the streets of various towns, culminating in lit torches being thrown into the galley, setting it alight and the galley being consumed in fire. (Early galleys were made from a light timber frame covered with canvas or alternatively old boats, whose useful life afloat was over, were converted and subsequently sent to Valhalla). The festival seems to have derived from the Norse culture, some of whom invaded the Shetlands in the 12th century. We all know by now my wish to have a Viking burial, see Tornados are water, who knew? Sometime in all of this, I watched another program and there was mention made of Freya, the Norse goddess of love and fertility, who I only learnt about while watching Vikings.
So now it seems that there is this symmetry and connectivity in choices that I’ve made – okay, watching Vikings was very much a conscious decision, but I had no clue that Shetland would have all the ancient Viking elements in it nor that they would be burning galleys at festivals or that Freya is mentioned on more than one occasion all of a sardine.
I’m going to leave this with you to ponder over. My brain hurts and I need to drink water.
