[pf] the "none, one, two, many" number system.

**  I have just hung out a single thick shirt on the door-width string at
the entrance to the back porch that I use for a clothes-line when it's
raining (as it is much of the time in our winter). I started to wonder if I
should put up another string.

**  The major step was from none to one. "half a loaf is better than none".

**  In the past I've noticed that counting:

"one, two, many" is sufficient for *a lot* of purposes (*many*!).

**  A minute ago I was deciding whether "two" had sufficient reason to be
included in such a basic number system. I concluded it had, considering:

* mirror symmetry
* + and - ; i.e. reversal of direction
* helices are either right-handed or left-handed
* sexual reproduction requires two sources to produce the one new organism
* finding the "inverse" is a basic mathematical process, e.g. in matrices
* there is a computing system based on trinary: zero, one, high-impedance
* the old saying: two's company, "three's a crowd" i.e. is many


**  I might think of more reasons to show why the "none, one, two, many"
number system is far more useful than a  "none, one, many" number system.

**  Anyone interested?

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/
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