“[The number 10 contains] formulas for lines, surfaces and solids;
for 1 is a point, 2 is a line, 3 a triangle, and 4 a pyramid,
and all these are primary and the starting points
for the other figures of each kind.”
—Speisippus (Fragment 4)
Unity is beauty itself:
“Unity is the principle of all things and the most
dominant of all that is: all things emanate from it
and it emanates from nothing.”
—Theon of Smyrna
—zeno: Tell me, Protagoras, does a single millet seed make a noise
when it falls, or one ten-thousandth of a millet seed?
—protagoras: No.
—zeno: Does a bushel of millet seeds make a noise when it falls, or doesn't it?
—protagoras: It does.
—zeno: But isn't there a ratio between the bushel of millet seeds and one millet seed,
or one ten-thousandth of a millet seed?
—protagoras: Yes there is.
—zeno: So won't there be the same ratios of their sounds to one another?
For as the things that make the noise [are one to another],
so are the noises [to one another]. But since this is so, if the bushel of
millet seeds makes a noise, so will a single millet seed
and one ten-thousandth of a millet seed.
—Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics 1108.18-25
