Special Numbers

One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do. Two can be as bad as one, but the loneliest number is the number one.

One is a great number. It’s not like the other ones, although maybe I should consider rephrasing that. The thing about one is that it’s the foundation of every other number. Without one, you can’t have two or three or four.

There’s something special about two, too.

Two is the way you get to symmetry, or to a mirror, or to a reflection. It’s the nucleus of the idea that there can be more than one thing, the lowest whole number above one. It shouts to the world that you don’t have to be one; you can be other numbers too.

Three is special, too! Ever see a trilogy? You get a nice introduction, a middle, and then an end. All three of these phases of a play or movie (or book series, or whatever) are interesting and important components. While you can have a “yes and no” with the number two, you need three to have anything with a middle, not just a beginning and an end.

Four, five, and six are all right on their own terms, I guess. They just seem so trivial or lame compared to those other three whole numbers that just seem so much more important and fundamental. Add two to two and you’ll get four, and you can make up five by adding two and three. These bigger numbers are just made up of the smaller ones, really, and they’re just not as cool as those first three.

Of course, there’s one more superstar number we need to shine a little light on today: the number zero. As I pointed out here, zero isn’t nothing:

It also hasn’t aways been a number, but more of a philosophical concept. The void, or nothingness, or the absence of anything seemed tough for our ancestors to wrap their minds around, but they got there eventually.

It’s pretty obvious why zero is so special. Every other number indicates some of something, but not zero.

Multiply any other number by zero, and you get zero. Zero is undefeated to this day in single combat against any other whole number. I’d say it’s like the king of numbers, but it’s also at the very bottom, so it’s like the lowest of the low at the same time.

For me, it’s zero, one, two, and three.
Every other whole number, I can leave be.

What about you—do you have any numbers you think are special? Are some of them smart for math reasons I’ve missed here, or do you have your own reasons for liking these particular numbers?

Today’s piece is meant to be quick, but also to stimulate your mind a bit in a way you might not otherwise get today. If you’re interested in a deeper dive into how math came to be, I recommend reading this next: