Ring is back. Am happy again. Especially since night before last I had a fantastically vivid dream in which the jeweler had stolen my diamond and replaced it with Cubic Zirconium (he did not, I checked). Our wedding bands are completed and engraved and living safely in the jeweler’s vault.
I wanted to take a picture of them first, but Neil wants to keep them a complete surprise until the moment we put them on. Blame him for the lack of awesome macro test by our new camera.
I will share our engraving though – because I think it’s neat.
Neil’s ring has the number 284 stamped on the inside. Mine has 220. They represent the first occurring pair of friendly numbers.
Pythagoras considered 220 and 284 to be friendly (or amicable). He even wrote: “[A friend] is the other I, such as are 220 and 284”. Aristotle also used the notion of friendly numbers to characterize friendship (in his work “Ethics”). So what makes the numbers 220 and 284 so special? Their property is that each is equal to the sum of the other’s proper divisors. The proper divisors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55, and 110, and they sum up to 284; the proper divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, and they sum up to 220.
The pair 220, 284 soon became a symbol of friendship. In the middle ages, 220 and 284 were used by a young man to express his love to his beloved. He would prepare two metal charms with the numbers 220 and 284 engraved on them. These were then put on chains to place around their necks.
We got the idea after reading Fermat’s Enigma, and thought it was way cooler than some random term of endearment, word of affection or each other’s name. And a great way to remind ourselves that above all we feel we’re marrying our very best friend. Our very nerdy very best friend.
The wedding is now in 3 months, 3 weeks and 1 day. Random factoid: that is 2 days shorter than the gestation period of a Pig. So if we found a sow in heat today and worked some pig-love-magic, we could have a piglet right about when we leave for our honeymoon. These are the things you learn when your fiancé grew up on a farm.
Neil also enjoys comparing the pregnancy, birth and childrearing of our human friends to those of various barnyard creatures. The men are usually amused. The women are usually not.
But I digress….
Wedding upcoming! There aren’t really any other fun planning updates. The big things are done, and the little things keep piling up – though I’m still not particularly worried about any of them.
Next up: shoes. I am currently in love with a pair of these (the Pigalle 70 if you look at Evening/Low) in the Fall 07 collection. Clearly someone needs to stop me.
That is so nerdy, and so adorable. I wish we had thought of engraving stuff; as it stands now Ed doesn’t even wear his rings and mine are too thin to withstand the process. I’ve been hinting for an engraved necklace or something because I really dig the sentiment but he has yet to pick up on my (many, obvious) hints.
Those shoes are amazing.
Would it weird you out to know that I also compare milestones to the gestation periods of animals?