What's your favourite number?

[Death's Spook]

I’m partial to Euler’s number, but my favorite number is 1. Which seems like an odd looking choice for someone pretty mathematical, but bear with me.

1 is the fundamental number that generates all others. You get the other whole numbers by adding 1, over and over. You generate the other integers (including the all important 0) by subtracting 1. You generate multiplication first by shorthanding repeated addition (which itself is repeated +1s), which leads you to division when you invert it. You generalize division and get fractions. You shorthand repeated multiplication and division through exponentiation, which you then extend in a logical way, which gets you to irrational numbers: numbers that cannot be expressed as fractions. I could go on and on, getting to complex and trascendental and complex transcendental numbers and all of math in its entirety, but none of this would be possible without the humble number 1 acting as a generator for everything else.