I listened to a woman on the radio today talk about her research on the history of binary systems. Before this, the word binary only invoked 0100011101010100s and images of CompSci nerds in my head. It never really entered my mind that binary systems can be viewed as fundamental to the following things:

• poetry
• theology
• knitting

The concept of a binary system actually first came about when an Indian scholar 2000+ years ago used it to describe the rhythms of poetry.

Then in 1666 a German mathematician/philosopher named Leibniz used the logic of binary systems to try and convert a Chinese emperor to Christianity. The Chinese already understood binary in terms of FenShui, of ying and yang. Leibniz basically said “If you can understand how all numbers can be ‘made’ from 0 and 1, then you can understand the Universe in terms of 0 and 1, where:

0 = the nothingness before God created the Universe

1 = God as an all-encompassing unity.”

Friggin. Genius.

And knitting? Well, in Morse code, letters of the alphabet are represented by combinations of two symbols;    In knitting, patterns are formed from two types of stitches (knit or purl)     —> So you can basically put words into knitting. There are myths and stories (including one authored by Dickens) where top-secret messages were knitted and passed on by innocent-looking old ladies.

I wonder if someone in Vancouver ever thought of this and yarn-bombed PostSecret-type messages around town…