In fact, my HS Honors Algebra teacher suggested it. He also baptized me, but that was about ten years later. Unfortunately I'm a bit put off by the notation and nomenclature, and, though I could be mistaken, it requires at least a little of the calc knowledge I lack. And yet calc strikes me as some of the most interesting math because it's not just manipulating numbers, there's actual THOUGHT involved.

Speaking of which, I get all you were saying here; I KNOW it's not a mystical magical miracle--but that tells me what it ISN'T, not what it is. Like I said, 2 isn't "spooky" because adding it to itself, or multiplying it, or even raising it to its own power give the same result, it's just that all those things are, in this particular case, the same operation: You're putting two things with two other things, and that means there's four of them, because that's just how counting works. My problem here is I'm UNABLE to explain 7 that way, and it bothers me. And the more I look at it, the freakier it gets, like with the (22/7)^2~10 thing. I mean, seriously, "if leading zeros are not permitted on numerals, then 142857 is the only cyclic number in decimal"?!!! What kind of twisted crap is that?