Countably Many

Tonight Zane and I discussed math.

He explained to me that it is possible to take a ball (made of some weird mathematical material I'm not familiar with it), divide it in to pieces, translate and otherwise manipulate such pieces (without stretching them), and come out with two ball exactly the same as the first. No loss of size or volume or any what not.

Zane then explained that it's possible to have an object with infinite surface area, but finite volume. The opposite is also true (apparently... we can't find it on wikipedia. More's the pity.)

At this point in my day, reality broke. I clawed at my sweater and wondered why it wasn't making duplicates of itself. Better yet, this finite surface area, infinite volume thing, as well as the ball paradox whatsit, would be great for fashion. I'd never have to buy a new piece of clothing, ever, expanding waistline or no. Why these pants you say? Oh, they fit so well because of the Banach-Tarski paradox. Always nice to know that no matter how infinite my ass becomes, there will always be something there to contain it.

Seeing that my grasp of the present and real was slowly slipping away – as well as, you know, the writhing in mental anguish I was doing on the couch – Zane rescued me. "But of course, none of these things are possible in the physical world."

Oh. Damn.

In consolation, I also discovered that I have countably many toes. I don't think you realize how happy that makes me.