Simplicity Squared

2007 April 1

As I logged into Gmail today and saw the latest Gproduct release, my mind bumped a bit against the marketing phrase of, "Simplicity Squared." If simplicity is something truly reductive, were you to mathematically raise it to the second power and square it I wondered if you'd end up where you really want to go.

Consider how when you square a number like 5 you get 25 (bigger), or if you square 3 you get 9 (bigger). But once you hit the number 1 = "true simplicity" and you square 1 you get 1 (the same). Go below 1 like 0.75 and square 0.75 to get 0.5625 (smaller), or square 0.2 and you get 0.04 (smaller). Ah, so the square of simplicity is truly more simple. The universe is well and I can now go back to preparing for my London exhibition.