Oo Ah Ta El & Mi Ta Zu El

Josh smokes a bit from his good stash and  tells the story about Oo Ah Ta El & Mi Ta Zu El

This is a story about a great Designer/Builder, whose name is Oo Ah Ta El. Oo lives on, what we call, a virtual world. The name of the world, well who cares, besides it wouldn't interest anybody, outside a small circle of friends [Phil Ochs]. Oo Ah Ta El gets this idea in his head that he should make something really, really big, and as round as round can be, so he goes to his drawing board to begin some rough sketches. A pile of crumpled papers builds on the floor, as each design approach seems to leave him with having to make 22 parts fit into 7 bins.

 On Oo's world, they do not have computers and calculators and such, yet but math is eternal and so he knew how to work out adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, with the use of a paper and pencil. In order to get a number, that he could use on his measuring bowls or tape measure, Oo began, what we call, longhand division. If you have ever done this type of math, the very first thing you may have noticed is it's immediate requirement for lots of Time and Space. After filling several pages and wearing the pencil down to a three inch stub, OoAh called it quits, as we was probably going to round off the answer to a couple of decimal points any way. About then, his know-it-all, nerdy little sister, Mi Ta Zu El, came in and began thumbing through the pile of longhand division. She turns to Oo and says, "I could have done these in half the time it took you."

Oo: Where were you, when I needed you?

Mi: Point is, ANYBODY would get exactly the same answer. We could say that the question, it's answer and all the steps between, already exist, eternally, outside of time and space. You could just go there and fetch the answer, without having to do all this messy work.

Oo: Cool! So, you know how to do this? Can you teach me how?

Mi: Even if I say I can, it won't do you any good. It will be impossible for you to KNOW, until you have exhausted me with endless debates, which question the veracity of math itself. I don't have time for that. My friends are waiting to take me to the Trekkie Convention (Yeah, sadly, they have them there too).

Oo: Big help you were.

Mi: [pulls a notebook with pictures of all her friends faces from her purse] Here, I'll make you a list of some of my facebook friends, from around the world. Maybe you can find one of them to explain it to you, in words that even a dummo boy can understand.

Oo: [waits for door to close behind her, then crumples the list and tosses it on the pile] Oi vey!! [shouts] What's for tea, mum?