Post #2121847

With apologies to No Doubt: In the reals we felt so safe One axis, rules we could trace Then doubles came along at night Pairs of pairs, still felt just right But every time we cross that line A mirror flips, a twist in sign Don’t *fold*, I know what you’re extending Every step breaks what we’re defending From fields to things that only pretend To behave the way we planned them Complex planes, a spinning phase i squared laughing at our ways Quaternions start to bend the scene Order’s gone, but norms stay clean Noncommuting, turning cold Still the length can’t be sold Don’t *fold*, I know what you’re constructing Rules decay but you keep doubling Closure’s fading, hands unbend This is the Cayley–Dickson end Octonions, cracks appear No associating here Sixteen dims, we lose the thread Zero divisors raise the dead We had a group Then a ring Then something else entirely Don’t *fold*, I know why you’re insisting Every loss is mathematically consistent You trade the laws you used to defend For one more doubling step again I won’t speak I’ll just extend One more time …and break a friend