Artist's Commentary
Gazintas

For those of you who find mathematics particularly intimidating, let me give you some reference material I found particularly helpful. Years ago, I spent a year and a half reading everything I could on theoretical mathematics and theoretical physics. These were all layman's books, but were extremely beneficial.

In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin
Asimov on Numbers by Isaac Asimov. (I actually read more than a dozen of Asimov's science books.)
The Joy of Pi by David Slater
Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh
Fermat's Last Theorem by Amir D. Aczel
The Mystery of the Aleph (Mathematics, the Kabbalay, and the Search for Infinity) by Amir d. Aczel
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Nature of Space and Time by Stepehn Hawking and Roger Penrose
The Story of √-1 by Paul J Nahin

This is just a brief summary of the many volumes I read. All of them are deeply fascinating and highly recommended. If you're really interested, however, and think you can wrap your mind around it, I would suggest your referring to any episode of the Beverly Hillbillies in which Jethro Bodine explains the branch of mathematics known as Gazintas. Although I can't explain it with the depth and clarity of Mr. Bodine, briefly: two gazinta four, two times. Two gazinta eight, four times. Two gazinta ten, five times. The beauty of this is that it works with all numbers and can lead one into a whole world of improbable number theorems including fractions and even negatives.