What is the meaning of one? It’s a question that has occupied the minds of the greatest thinkers such as Philo of Alexandria, who believed that the numeral one was God’s number and so the basis of all other numbers.
Two millennia later, in the august surroundings of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, three judges in the Court of Appeal last week also deliberated on the meaning of one. They came to the conclusion that one does not necessarily mean one at all – because it can actually include anything greater than or equal to a half and less than one-and-a-half.
