“That's the thing about the number six, it is perfectible. Consider the combinations: its sum is the product of its factors-excluding itself-one times two times three. Moreover, one-sixth of it, the number one, plus one-third of it, the number two, equal one-half of it, the number three. If you resolve the numeral into six dots and pile them up, with one on top, two dots centered under that, and the final three under that, you get a triangle.”

• Michael Olmert