Yeah, maybe I’m just a math nerd, but I found this section to be absolutely beautifully written. I was seriously moved by the way 小川洋子 thinks about and describes the numbers and the universe. It got me more excited about math than I have been for a while (and I really like math!) I’m definitely going to read some of her other stuff at some point or another.
By the way, did you know that Euler was schooled by the Bernoullis? I was also surprised to learn, fairly recently, that the Bernoullis were a big ol’ physics/math family, and not just one person, which probably explains why the name shows up all over the place. Euler was going to go into church stuff, but the Bernoulli’s convinced him (or his parents?) to study math instead. Thank God (or no thanks to God?)