“Nothing is better than eternal happiness; a ham sandwich is
better than nothing; therefore, a ham sandwich is better than
eternal happiness”
—Anonymous
There is only one empty set, and it exists around the world,
the set of loyal lovers and living unicorns, honest politicians
and the contents of the intersection of any two non-intersecting
circles. Sets are aggregates of things, to be divided and united.
You can fill your sets with cardinal numbers or with cardinals,
and those cardinals might have red feathers or army green
feathers or might be cardinals in the Vatican voting for a pope.
Set theory lets you put them together—math does what the Catholic
church cannot. The empty set is the set of lady cardinals knitting
socks in Rome, discussing theology and wielding power
lightly, pausing to commend their cleaning ladies, to tousle
the heads of altar boys. The empty set is not the same as nothing.
The universal set is not the same as everything
and arrives with paradoxes of its own. John Venn, a humble
man, never called them Venn Diagrams, but used Euclidian Circles
to show logical relations all day, until climbing in bed
with his wife, whom he feared would devour him in an act
of intersection and union. Our aggregates of things can weigh
us down, Lord knows, and what’s true of those you love
beyond measure also will be true
of the elements of the empty set.
—Bonnie Jo Campbell
UQM Ships
