Numbers with Personality

 

 

To think that each of the 'positive integers was one of his personal friends' seems a little outlandish to me. My first thought was then 'are the negative numbers his enemies then?', which could lay into the personification of numbers moreover, but was strange to me nonetheless. I believe that the quote is seen as playful and more of a connection that the speaker has to the world, connecting him through various means such as numbers. The world is often surrounded by numbers and as we walk through the world we encounter numbers every day, to have them as your friend would be to see the beauty and positivity of numbers, having a positive relationship with them and appreciating them for all they do. 

I think that it would be a cool idea to bring into the classroom, perhaps towards a concept with exponents and large numbers or scales, as they're often hard to conceptualize. As someone with a wild and colorful imagination, perhaps we could use the sheer scale of a large number like a monster or golem and show creativity through that lens. For scale factors students can draw themselves and a monster overlain on them, and find the scale that would proportionally make their monster correct. For representing large numbers, we could perhaps give a large number a name or represent it by a drawing, and refer to it as that in future classes. I'm not entirely sure how I would bring in personifying numbers strictly as I don't completely know the benefit in it.

Personally I don't think numbers have personalities, although like the article mentioned, I have seen instances where people see numbers as lucky or unlucky. Specifically in Chinese culture the numbers 4 and 8 have significant meaning. In sports I've also seen people thinking numbers are lucky, or associating a trait to a certain number. In hockey a famous defenceman named Bobby Orr wore the #4, so naturally many young kids would wear that number to imitate him. In terms of months of the year, I think we could associate weather to personalities, with Winter being cold and a little dreary, but Summer being light, happy, and excited. There are also ties to astrological signs that many people believe in.