Zero is beckoning. It’s a mouth to feed, a space to fill. It’s slimmer at the top and bottom than it is across the middle, which makes it more elegant, classier - more natural than the vulgar letter O. It is also profoundly more intimidating. Zero will reduce any other figure to nothing.
And there is One. It is what it is, straight up. Accountable. Accounting. When you have one, you know where you stand, and that you do stand. One might do the job for you, but when you have more, you have more.
I want to like seven, but deep down I don’t think I do. I like eight… and for different reasons, three. Two is good when someone is expecting three and you give them two. Everyone expects three. It's like speaking softly in a crowded room. "Oh? Oh… there's only two. Concentrate."
I once presented to the board for television at the BBC, and afterwards someone told me I was too loud. I don't remember how many points I made, but I only did that once.
There are special numbers that mathematicians like, like Pi or the Golden Ratio. Pi has to do with circles and I know it’s important but it just doesn’t really connect. And anything golden might sound luxurious, glamorous - the kind of number you want to be seen out in - until you realise it’s the ratio between the width and length of ISO paper sizes. It’s the dimensions of A4 paper. Common as muck.
Here’s the one that I like though, the one that’s always gripped me. I. The imaginary number. I is the square root of minus one. As you know, if you have a number - let’s call it Y - the square root of Y is the number that results in Y when you multiply that number by itself. The square root of four is two, because two times two is four.
But take a negative number. What’s its square root? If you multiply two negative numbers together, you get a positive number, so the square root of minus one can’t be a negative number.
If you multiply two positive numbers together, you get a positive number, so the square root of minus one can’t be a positive number.
Can’t be positive, and can’t be negative, and can’t be zero because - as we know and love all too well - multiply anything by zero and you get zero.
The square root of minus one isn’t there. I can’t put it down on the table one at a time, or take it off the table, or show you that you have or haven’t got it. But all the same it matters very much to mathematicians, scientists and engineers, they need it. And it doesn’t stop me from saying it to you and gripping you with it. I can whisper it to you on the way out. Imaginary unit. The square root of minus one. I.
And then you realise, none of it’s really there. None of the numbers. None of the numbers are there. I have never once told a client that revenue has gone up and then arranged for them to see their money stacked on the table. It would be inconvenient, but also probably a waste of time. It’s not the amount of money that matters, it’s how they feel about the number, how it sounds, what it inspires. Whether real or imaginary, whether a number, or anything else, nothing is there until you feel it. Whatever it is, what it is, and what it does, is how you feel about it.
Have a good weekend.