Fait-divers by John Horton Conway

"That’s a curious thing about the nature of mathematical existence. This rule hasn’t physically existed in any sense in the world before a month ago, before I invented it, but it sort of intellectually existed forever. There is this abstract world which in some strange sense has existed throughout eternity. Imagine an uninhabited planet, full of interesting things. You land on it, and it existed for a million years, but no people have ever been there, no sentient beings. There are such places, I’m sure. Go to some remote star and there will be something. But you don’t have to go there. You can sit in this very chair and find something that has existed throughout all of eternity and be the first person to explore it." (John Horton Conway)