First numbers

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The first number is a foreigner's concept. However, everyone is a foreigner to at least some other people, because no one lives in all countries at once. Therefore first numbers are a universal concept and belong to all mankind.

Pythagoras contended that the number 1 was the first number because that's where counting begins. His backup group had a hit with the idea that 1 is also the loneliest number.

Buddha, however, disagreed because -- he said -- the Void came before anything else, and therefore 0 must be the first number.

There matters stood for several centuries, while The Black Death ravaged the Medieval Period. Finally Emmanuel Kant wrote that since 0 comes before 1 and 0 is less than 1, his new concept of negative numbers meant that -1 comes before 0. Therefore -1 must be a prior number (an example of a priori reasoning). But Kant was baffled by the implied infinite regression: if -1 comes before 0, then -2 comes before -1, -3 before -2, etc. "It's turtles all the way down!" exclaimed Saint Stephen Hawking.

It took the genius of Kurt Godel, inventor of the Rubik's cube, to resolve the matter. Godel invented the mathemagics of infinities, and thereby proved that negative infinity must be the first number.

In the 21st Century Godel's concept has been infinitely refined. Mathemagician Karl Rove recently advised the President to "go negative" in his campaign against John "Fairy" Kerry. Even the pop culture has taken note, as evidenced by singer Alizée's refrain Veuillez svp descendre à la cave, usually translated as the mathemagical plea for the negative: "Please please go down."

Outside of mathemagics, the First Number is taken by mystics and Baptists to be the Prime Cause, or the Unmoved Mover, ie, Jerry Falwell.