As I'm cleaning up my apartment and listening to Radio Lab. The episode is all about Numbers. There is a fantastic opening segment about how infants view numbers completely different from us. How they see the distance between the numbers 1 and 2 as far greater than the distance between 9 and 10. Because they see don't view things as single integers, adding an object to another object doubles the amount you have (1 + 1 = 2) but adding an object to a group of objects doesn't double a group (9 + 1 = 10). It goes on to say through reward and prompting they eventually forget that notion of math and start to see thing the way adults do. By integers (one is one one is one is one, you can add one to anything its still only increasing by one each time).

The second segment is about a strange russian mathematician. Interesting, but not as good s the first.

The third segment though. Seemed to hit home. Made me think a little and relate to my own life (thats what great about Radio Lab, the stories always relate or make you think). It all about this guy who became pen pals with his old high school math teacher. The write math problems back and forth to each other and try to confound each other. For years. When his teacher's son dies abruptly he doesn't know how to respond, so he doesn't. But the teacher goes on for years sending more math problems, even when the narrator starts a family and can't keep up with replying. A year or two later the narrator's brother dies. And he gets a letter with condolences about his loss from the teacher.

The narrator mentions how bad he feels, about how hard it was to just say "I'm sorry I never talked to you about your son and your loss." But how the teacher's letter hit him, and made him reach this Bifurcation. Its a math term that states "when a forces upon a system gets too large there can be a moment when the dynamics of that system change abruptly and qualitatively." (direct quote from the show) He eventually goes to the teacher's house and they talk about it, and their relationship changes at that point. It more deep.

Anyways, bifurcation. I think this kind of relates to how I forgive people. If I think of friendships and family that have gone burning down in flames (really only a few of them) and about how I deal with that destruction of a friendship. I usually just cut off contact, stop talking to them whatever. But to forgive whatever destroyed that friendship takes so little. Usually that non-contact goes on for a long while, but it takes the littlest of effort to change it.

I think of Rollin. We were college friends, eventually roommates after college. We lived together for a year or so (two years maybe). That was all ending with his getting married. That's exciting enough, but the last couple months of us living together were also stressful because his sister basically moved onto our living room couch. She also worked a night job and was around all day. Our apartment was a quaint (nice way of saying small) two bedroom. A third person on our couch, not paying rent, was infuriating. Anyways, this was stressful on our friendship, but not crushing. Rollin wasn't really dealing with the situation despite my prompting to kick her out. This is all from my perspective, I have no real clue what was going on in Rollin's end.

Anyways, the last month or so of living was particularly silent between us. I had assumed, being that I was his roommate and all, and that we had been friends for years, that I would be invited to the wedding. But a month had passed since I literally watched them send out wedding invitations. And I never got one, and was never told I wasn't going to the wedding. This was my good friend, my current roommate, and I wasn't invited. And no excuse was given. It wasn't even spoken. It was like this unspoken argument between us (granted this was from my perspective). He moves out, gets married, and that's that.

We didn't speak for years (three). And then right before I moved to Cleveland Rollin called me up. He had heard I was moving and wanted to see me before I me before I moved. That was it. We hadn't talked in years. And despite how things had ended, here it was coming up again. He wanted to hang out before I moved. That was all I needed to forget I was upset about not being invited to his wedding. That whole issue, gone. And really has never been brought up. It doesn't need to be. He came down and hung out all weekend. It was a great weekend, like old times. We've talked a bunch since then, I saw him a few weekends ago in Buffalo (he lives in Canada now).

Bifurcation. A splitting. A fork. I suppose being a guy it is easy to forgive a friend. Slight bit of pressure, and blam, the normal order is changed and split. Maybe its over complicating it. But that what I thought of after hearing it.

You can find that show here. Radio Lab : Numbers