Edith Borroff

Early Thought Patterns: a Prehistoric Esthetic of Number Edith Borroff

In addition to practical arithmetic functions for numbers, ancient peoples also developed esthetic concepts pertaining particularly to the numbers two, three, four, and seven. These concepts were also philosophical, and terms from them are part of our vocabulary (The "deadcenter," "going off the deep end," etc.)¿Though we no longer know where they came from. The ideas seem to have been universal: I personally witnessedevidence for this in Africa, Australia, America, and Norway.