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RAKUGAKICHO

NO.3

We can find mathematical things everywhere. The heavenly bodies obey various physical laws which we commonly express in mathematical language. Looking at the world of nature, we can find geometric patterns everywhere. (For example, spider's webs, honeycombs and crystals of minerals and snow and so on.) We human being have found these laws by experience and have developed them. This book takes up art, world's universal language and religious mysticism, the expression of our efforts to fathom the unfathomable, and says that they contributed the development of mathematics the most. Today we generally associate mathematics with science and some people might think that it is surprising that mathematics has a close relation to art and religion.

The other day, teaching Japanese children, an interesting thing happened. Explaining 「6×3」, I said this means 「六の三倍(Roku no sam bai)」(three times 6). Then I asked her "What does「6×1」mean?" She answered 「六の一杯(roku no ippai)」(a bowl of 6).
In Japanese, "one time","two times","three times","four times"and so on are said "ichibai","nibai",sambai","yombai" and so on. But "a bowl of ","two bowls of","three bowls of","four bowls of"and so on are said "ippai","nihai","sambai","yonhai"and so on. That is, "sambai" has two meanings, "three times" and "three bowls of".

This time I take up『海星』.『海』means "sea(umi)" and『星』means "star(hosi)". Probably you could guess its meaning, I think. It means "sea star or starfish". In Japanese we pronounce this kanjis "hitode" which means "a hand of the man". So we also write『人手』.(『人』means "man" and『手』means "hand".) Why on earth do we pronounce sea star as a hand of man? To tell the truth,『海星』is Chinese and we Japanese borrowed it from Chinese. It is very confusing for the learners of Japanese including Japanese children. I always think we should use『人手』.

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