Look at the Grass!

"Too bad there is nothing really mystical to complex numbers," says Mr. Jones.

I blink. Numbers are the basis of everything when you think about it though those chemicals in the periodic table come pretty close as will the grand chart in biochemistry, but that axis has to mean something. It is so pure, so simple, the center of everything is at the origin and from then on.... everything radiates outward. Shouldn't two sets of numbers following two very different sets of rules be proof of at least two different universes? I feel, to say the least, confused.

"Most mysticism," explains Mr. Jones "is ancient going back to the deep recesses of the human unconscious, what Jung called the collective unconscious. Complex numbers just don't qualify and neither do negative ones. Eileen, mathematicians only discovered complex numbers and started working with them in the eighteenth century. Eileen, they even had trouble with negative numbers before that. Yes, it's a very 'mystic concept' when numbers are less than zero. Zero is nothing to most people. That is how peope have traditionally viewed the world, and in that tradition are the roots of most mythologies."

That long winded speech more or less leaves me deflated. Of course I have a question and it tickles the back of my mind like a feather. "In this dry rational world where we have forgotten most magic and mysticism and religion are almost underground practices, why shouldn't there be a new way for looking at them that uses the tools we have at hand, the tools that are respected?" I don't ask that question.

I just think about it. It is almost time for sixth period and I've got AP Biology. Talking about photosynthesis takes my mind off the mysticism of numbers. Seventh period passes and eighth period. Drama club does not meet today so I grab my books and head home.

It is a bright sunny day. The grass outside Ardsley High School is green as expensive jade except for some burnt lines that look as if a very methodical dog has peed there leaving trails that are made with a straight edge or a steady hand. The trails cross each other. There are three of them. If there were only two the trails would form the axis familiar to students of trigonometry and Math 12X. The third line is a bit of a puzzle. I remember something of polar coordinates. Then my rational mind kicks in. Someone must have spilled herbicide on the grass or is getting ready to paint lines on the grass or something.... I haven't heard of crop circles but they are not crop axes and they don't appear on lawns.

1. Draw an image of the axes burned into the grass on the school lawn.
2. Go back into school to get a book on the mysticism of numbers from the library.
3. Just go home.

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