Where Do Numbers Live?

It is really hard to know. Numbers are mysterious objects. Actually, we should differentiate them from numerals, which are metaphors, symbols used to represent numbers. Counting with the integers 1,2,3, and so on, in the 10 base number system is inspired and empowered by the 10 digits of the ten fingers on our two hands. Some 25 centuries ago, Pythagoras asserted that number one was a monad, an indivisible element of nature, in which number was the essence of all things. Many years later, in the 17th century, Galileo said that the book of nature was written with numbers in the language of mathematics. In modern times the Nobel laureate philosopher Bertrand Russell returned to the Platonic concept of an ideal world, a cosmos with immaterial, ethereal dimensions of which our earthly existence is just an inferior copy and reflection. In his 1903 volume, 'The Principles of Mathematics', Russell said that the subject matter of mathematics involves Platonic essences that exist in a universe transcending both mind and matter.