One time when Oneo was at 0, it was hit by a photon. This made Oneo very excited and it emitted a photon in a different direction. To its amazement another photon hit him. It emitted another photon in excitement and watched as it actually left its universe. It went beyond the edge.
Oneo started its first experiment, emitted a series of photons and recorded the results. Each time Oneo emitted a photon another returned from outside its universe. Oneo got his ruler out and measured the photons. It noticed that all photons were not the same. The size of the photons waves were different. Then Oneo noticed a pattern that recurred with every 2 photons. The wave size of the first photon was large and the second one was small. It decided to mimic this pattern as it emitted photons. To its amazement the pattern of incoming photons changed.
Now a new pattern emerged. Each photon had a high frequency or a low frequency. It now received a pattern that recurred with every 4 photons. The first photon had a low frequency with a small wave, the second was a low frequency with a large wave, the third was a high frequency with a small wave the last was a high frequency with a high wave.
Oneo realised that it wasn’t alone. There was another intelligence somewhere outside its universe that was emitting photons. It decided to call this other Zero as first contact had been at 0.
Eventually Oneo and Zero established a bit of a language for communication. It turned out the Zero lived in a similar universe to Oneo’s. Zero had also labelled the centre of its universe 0. Like Oneo, Zero spent his time journeying around his universe. It wanted to visit as many different points as possible. The problem was that all the points on the edge were very similar and it needed a way to ensure that it did not repeatedly visit the same points. It came up with three numbers for describing each point in its universe. Each of these numbers could be positive or negative depending on which side of the origin they were to be found.
Oneo could not understand the concepts of positive and negative but thought the three numbers system would be useful for distinguishing all its different points, so it called the centre (0, 0, 0). It called the North Pole (0, 0, 1^) and the South Pole (0, 0, 1v ) on the z-axis. The ^ and v superscripts indicating that the points were on opposite sides. Similarly, it called the East and West axes on the y-axis (0, 1^, 0) and (0, 1v, 0). It called the Near and Far poles on the x-axis (1^, 0, 0) and (1v, 0, 0).
This system satisfied Oneo as it did not need negative numbers. Oneo is still waiting for Zero to explain what negative and positive numbers are in the universe. It might as well be waiting for Godo.
