Sacred Number

I spent some time yesterday with the team at InnerTraditions to fit my book into a 256 page publication package . Lines were being sacrificed, not to the gods, but to 2 to the power of 8 = 256. Two is the lowest prime number that can do work, it is about doubling and boolean zeros and ones are of course just two in disguise.

The two in a book comes from the fact that it is made of packets of pages or sheets that are cut into packets. A large sheet is printed and then cut up and bound in, and the size of the sheet makes a packet. The rectangular sheet has two dimensions and so the number of rectangular pages it contains are almost bound (pardon me) to be an even number i.e. to involve the prime  number two.  To achieve an odd rectangular number, two odd numbers must be multiplied together.

In Sacred Number the only rectangular number system is based upon the pyramid height times the pyramid south-side length - resulting (in feet) in the number of feet in the degree of latitude of Giza, Chapter 4, the other sides yielding different degrees of latitude [after John Neal].

 I also set this system up. It combines blog-journal and website in a very powerful way - the sort of thing I might have done if I had not been writing books. For now I am connecting parts of my existing world together (see Metrology) but new material will be appearing steadily because it is easy to get it done with this www.squarespace.com system.