" Numbers were originally abstractions, invented just to quantify things, to count rocks or people or grapes or whatever. The fact that dust floating in the air & the price of stock options behave according to the same mathematical principles, the fact that everything in the universe apparently can be described or predicted with a mathematical equation-a radical idea when Pythagoras suggested it- is probably the most startling coincidence in the history of mankind. "
― Kevin Guilfoile , The Thousand