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Rainbows are a universal sign of hope, although they only exist in the eyes of the people who see them and sometimes in their photographs.
How intriguing then that biblical storytellers saw this trick of light as the sign of God’s promise. Talking about the God that was nowhere to be seen before science discovered the unsettling idea of nothingness.
Nothing appears to be more important than we want to imagine. For reality, as physics writer Amanda Gefter says, [i] ‘may come down to mathematics, but mathematics comes down to nothing at all.’ She quotes the late physicist John Wheeler who said that the basis of mathematics is 0=0 and that all mathematical structures can be derived from something called the empty set, the set that contains no elements. According to mathematician Ian Stewart this is the dreadful secret of all mathematics, that it’s all based on nothing. [ii] Read more
Sources
- Sande Ramage in Spirited Crone
Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.
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