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→Drive and Fantasy
Although the term [[matheme]] is not introduced by [[Lacan]] until the early 1970s, the two formulae which are most often referred to as [[matheme]]s date from 1957.
These formulae, which were both created to designate points in the [[graph of desire]], are the [[matheme]] for the [[drive]], ($ * <> D), and the [[matheme]] for [[fantasy]], ($ * <> ''a'').
The [[structural]] parallel between the two [[matheme]]s is clear; they are both composed of two [[algebra]]ic [[symbol]]s conjoined by a rhomboid (the symbol *, which [[Lacan]] calls the ''poinçon'') and enclosed by brackets.
They are "created to allow a hundred and one different readings, a multiplicity that is admissible as long as the spoken remains caught in their algebra."<ref>{{E}} p.313</ref>
They are constructed to resist any attempt to reduce them to one univocal [[signification]], and to prevent the reader from an intuitive or [[imaginary ]] [[knowledge|understanding ]] of [[:category:concepts|psychoanalytic concepts]]: the [[mathemes]] are not to be understood but to be used.
In this way, they constitute a formal core of [[psychoanalytic theory]] which may be transmitted integrally.
