ZORN'S LEMMA

When the mathematicians hit you, be ready. It may not be only numbers that they have in store for you. Here I was, thinking of the growing intensity in the ping-ponging that I play with my genius friend, and laughing at the idea that the more I think that I can handle the biggest infinity around, imagining also that I sit on the edge of the universe where there's a lot of space between the galaxies – that's it, no more clutter, just as I like it up there – not even dust – so, yes, thinking at the edge of the universe of how beautiful it is to add one more zero to the one, and thus get further and further away from screwed up perspectives and verbal animations, I think, yes, with the biggest infinity around, the only ordinary thing that will happen is seeing the emergence of patterns that replace the world of words with images and symbols, and yes, the obvious itself will also occur like magic, and the obvious is that soon I'll change my profession, and so will he, the genius, that is, I mean, here at the edge of the universe, with space in between the ordinary occurrence of the obvious, yes, what will happen is that I'll take up his job at Aalborg University, a mighty universe indeed, and he will take up mine, an even bigger universe, as I'm always into bigger things than anyone else, and we'll improve the world from within, we'll go from the 10 raised at the power of minus 16 to some other 10 raised at some very nice infinity, to destroy numbers, crush them, to make some light, so ok, we'll need some help, I think Caravaggio is a good bet, and so is Zorn's 11th axiom of set theory, yes, we need to fix first some existences, even Gertrude Stein was into redemptive acts, so why not us, get past the obvious but not losing it out of sight, and also past the Bible, but not losing it out of sight either, and then we'll pause 5 minutes into the film that H, the genius, has been circulating around for our instruction into Zorn's lemma, which says that, well, Zorn says a lot of things, that there must be a yes somewhere in it, there's for instance a very nice yes in the very fifth minute, after the alphabet and the creation, and after the facts: "In Adam's fall we sinned all"; "Thy life to mend, God's Book attend"; "The Cat doth play, and after slay", when the camera takes a break from all that infinite obviousness of ordinary things, and when it pauses on the yes, lo and behold, not on anything else, in fact it does so quite stubbornly, pause, that is, or hesitate, to be more precise, and yes, of course, before you know it, H and I will have a lot of fans, we do already, and they will all shout, oy, or perhaps, oh my, how clever of you two, by Jove, but then by then Jove will be out of sight, I mean, with all this infinity in the provisional, who's to say what we'll get out of changing professions, but then again, at the edge of the universe, whether H will be a mediocre poet, and I a lousy mathematician, the question is, will it make any difference, no difference at all, we'll be so spaced out, and totally Muybridgian, beyond analogies, beyond the laws of attraction, beyond the laws of correspondences, beyond the laws of causality, beyond the laws of end results, and, I'm sure that I'm missing some laws right now, I'm sure of it, but, in any event, and even beyond 'whatever', there is light, there's lots of light even there where there's lots of space between the lightning stars, and yes, even though I hate it, I think that I'll pick up the phone and ask the genius what the hell he's thinking about, although between the two of us, I know it already, so perhaps to the fans then, yes, we promise, we'll do it, we'll hit this one. Let there be 11 of them.

Comments

lektor said…
You would be a wonderful mathematician in no time! Cause you already understand the most difficult concepts of them all: 11, infinity and beyond:)
Camelia said…
Yes, the difficult has never been my problem. It's worse with the basics. Goes back to myself in 5th grade, wanting to talk infinities and the like, and the teacher holding a strong arithmetical hand over me, "please don't question that 1+1=2". I disliked that so very much, enough to make me ditch math. I'm still paying for that foolish stubbornness. But what with you, we still have the laws of vibrations that restore my mathematical universe in quite a sublime way. The vaster the space, the less oppressive and confined. I bow to you.

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