Numbers exist only in our minds. There is no physical entity that is number 1. If there were, 1 would be in a place of honor in some great museum of science, and past it would file a steady stream of mathematicians gazing at 1 in wonder and awe.

— John B. Fraleigh and Raymond A. Beauregard, Linear Algebra (1995)

From the 1995 linear algebra textbook by Fraleigh and Beauregard.

Topics: mathematics