DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 139, 2 September 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

NUMBERS

(Copyright, 1927) TT is an error to suppose that numbers are a purely artificial creation by men. Numbers are inherent in the nature of things. There was an old philosopher who held that numbers were the secret of all things, and from some points of view he appears to be about right. The universe seems to be constituted numerically. It sticks to certain numbers in certain things. A man, for instance, has two hands, two feet and two ears. Rarely is a man born, except he be a freak, with more or less of these numbers. He began as a biped and there is every prospect of his remaining so. The earth makes its revolution around the sun in exactly the same number of hours every year. The tides move with mechanical regularity. The heart and lungs sustain their rhythmic motion. If you will examine the way twigs come out of the stump of trees you will fiud that in each species they preserve a certain numerical relation. Take a spiral thread and wind it about the trunk of a tree and you will find that the limbs come out at certain intervals. These intervals are the same in all maples and they differ from all pines. Music is a mathematical affair, as the position and operation of tones bear a certain relation to each other which must be preserved. Light travels with a certain number of vibrations every second, and all natural forces seem to be based upon some mathematical rule. Altogether the whole universe seems to be planned with certain numbers in mind, and the science of mathematics is fundamentally a delving into the processes of nature. * It is not to be regarded as an artificial science, but one which has its loots in the nature of things.