Today, when I was tidying my room, I discovered a door previously unexplored. I opened it, and entered a most interesting place.
I was greeted by a man employed, I presume, to counteract the effects of confusion that the place must have on casual visitors such as myself.
"Hello," he said. "Welcome to the Ideal Universe."
I looked around. The Ideal Universe was sparse, monochrome, and composed mainly of line drawings.
"It looks lovely," I said, because I was always encouraged to be polite.
"Feel free to have a look around," said the man whose name I later learned to be A.
I walked towards an interesting slope, and found myself sliding at a constant speed towards it. This struck me as odd, not least of which because I was wearing my new Converse boots.
"I don't understand," I said to A. "The floor seems to be slippery. Indeed, it seems to be infinitely slippery, as I still haven't stopped moving."
"There is no friction in this part of the Ideal Universe," said A. "Neither is there air resistance, nor time."
"How can there be an absence of time?" I inquired. "After all, it must take time to speak, and I'm quite certain we've both spoken to some extent in the last few minutes."
"We've spoken, certainly," said A. "But that is not to say that it took time. Rather, the speaking merely happened, without reference to the duration."
"I find all of this most confusing," I said, for I found all of this most confusing.
"Watch this," said A. He retrieved a rubber ball from his pocket. It was a line drawing again, but I must assume it was a rubber ball, because when he dropped it, it bounced.
"When it bounces back," said A, "The ball reaches two-thirds of the height from which it was dropped."
And so it did.
"It then drops again, and upon returning, it reaches two-thirds of the new drop."
This made sense to me.
"Watch now."
I watched, and the ball continued to drop and bounce, over and over. And what was unusual about this was that it didn't stop. It didn't bounce away in a strange directions as rubber balls so often do. It didn't settle on the floor before rolling away. Indeed, by now, despite appearing to be largely stationary, I could still hear the bouncing of the ball, and it seemed to be vibrating.
"Surely it ought to stop eventually," I said.
"But this is the Ideal Universe," said A. "It will continue until it is disrupted."
And with this, he placed his foot upon the ball, and it finally settled. But still it did not roll away.
"May I ask," I said finally. "What is the purpose of this Ideal Universe? Why does it exist?"
"This is the universe in which maths homework exists," said A. "Factors such as friction, gravity and dimensions may be stripped away, leaving purely logical factors only. For instance ..."
But the rest of A's speech would fall on deaf ears, because I'd gone to play with the scalene triangles.
