The Power of a Number

It's strange how the simple visibility of a number can have a drastic impact, either positive or negative on mood. Every time I anticipate receiving a grade on a university assignment I get a mixed feeling of sinking dread, juxtaposed with excitement. Due to the subjectivity of marking, it's difficult to know which will win out. When I receive a grade I feel is justly awarded, or I have excelled my expectations, the feeling is phenomenal - relief and a certain humble pride; my work has been acknowledged. If the opposite, I feel disappointed and perhaps self-critical. What could I have done to have received a better grade? It is the presence of the visible number that creates these emotions, which signify the underlying meanings of affirmation or rejection.

It's a similar story with weight, and perhaps a little more personal depending on individual attitude towards exercise, food and indeed life in general. Weighing objects out on a scale, particularly in cooking is a discipline - it requires precision, particularly in specialised cooking. The ingredients have to be of certain quantities in order to get the intended outcome. Put in too much or too little of the ingredients when you're baking, and the culinary gods will curse you! But when personally weighing yourself, it's perhaps a different sort of feeling. One emotion procured could be fear - fear of gaining weight, or in some cases, fear of losing weight. The power of the number has a much more tangible effect because it usually reflects one's inability to be self-disciplined in losing weight, or one's powerlessness in losing the weight. It reflects the truth of the situation, quite out rightly in a number. And it's just a number, but it has such a profound effect. However, these numbers - though that's all they are empirically, are used to mean something in the real world. The numerical weight of your body often corresponds to how society perceives you. The BMI index is an oxymoron in my view - a damaging utility, in the sense that the psychological impact of the number can really affect you, because it's in place to inform healthy standards, and if you're not in a particular bracket, judgement is inevitably passed.

Consider another number: 93 million.
This is the estimated number of miles in distance that the Sun is from the Earth. The larger the number, the more difficult it is for the brain to process. Especially I think when we read about topics involving space, and outer space, our brains tend to switch off because we assume these things become metaphysical, and don't intimately affect us. Yet one cannot suggest this regarding the above number. The sun is necessary to sustain life on earth. These 93 million miles constitute the distance between something that is maintaining whatever it is you're doing now. It's allowing you to live. This kind of thing provokes a certain emotion of awe.

Apparently it would take 40 billion years to cross one side of the known universe to the other.(1) 40 billion years...our lives seem so transient and insignificant in comparison. Our life spans seem so horrifically short in comparison, because we pale into insignificance in the face of something which is infinitely more vast.

The average brain with which you are probably processing this information has around 200 millions neurons which are all interconnected, and a single cell can not only communicate with other cells, but can communicate within itself. (2) The efficiency is outstanding. It is no wonder we assume cognitive function to be a characteristic by which we qualify human status.

We are therefore indebted to these numbers which no doubt we daily take for granted. The numbers which cause both positive and negative emotions are central in attempting to pin down the meaning behind our concepts. Numbers enable stability. Mathematics is something in the world which, although can be proven wrong, is generally something quite meticulous and assuring. Yet, it is the meaning behind the numbers which I personally find so much more gripping and compelling. Hence the reason why I am an Arts student. (That, and the fact that I'm horrifically bad at maths!)



Sources of information:

(1) http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/CarmenBissessar.shtml

(2) http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/neurons_intro/neurons_intro.php