Everything is Simple

Evangeline Beeching

Lose all faith: 
The earth has no curves or rotation, 
the vastness of Heaven becomes a flat painting. 

Existence is strictly defined: 
Mysteries, with no tools to imagine their content, 
are unwelcome, forbidden. 

There are only:
Meticulously counted everythings 
put into boxes,
thrown-out misfits.

All motion is this:
Climbing a ladder 
where every rung is visible and attainable, 
the end is only the end, 
abrupt, inevitable.

One lifetime, and no more.

Fixed point after fixed point. 

We killed Anaximander,
silenced Pythagoras long before he could speak,
and thankfully now, everything makes sense, 
our lives tuck neatly into meaningful categories, 
our days are spent ignoring anything in-between,
and everything is simple, 
named, 
discretized and incomplete.

The Science

This poem imagines the consequences of our existence if we did not use the concept of infinity. While mathematicians and philosophers argue about the nuanced definition of infinity, and the different forms it may take, it is impossible to separate physical science and modern mathematics from this ancient concept. Pre-Socratic philosophers like Anixamander and Theophrastus discussed apeiron, the infinite, and the place of Earth floating in an infinite heaven. Later defined further by Pythagoras, and a foundational concept in calculus, much of what we know about the physical world is based on a concept that lacks clear definition. Physicists take infinity “for granted”. Without these assumptions, however, our knowledge of the physical world would be incomplete. The poem highlights the importance of the concept and the consequences and incompleteness of a world without it.


The Poet

Evangeline Beeching (she/they) is an American scientist and artist. With poetry also appearing in The Cawnpore and paintings in Encyclopedia Prismatica, Evangeline is dedicated to the scientific craft, research, and finding meaning in the mundane.

Next poem: God's Cat by Juveriya Nazneen