  To solve the problems of separation and precision, contemporary philosophers such as Speusippus and possibly Plato posited a universe of mathematical entities which are perfect instances of mathematical properties, adequately multiple for any theorem we wish to prove, and separate from the physical or perceptible world. Aristotle calls them mathematicals or intermediates, because they are intermediate between the Forms and physical objects, in as much as they are perfect, eternal, and unchanging like the Forms, but multiple like physical objects (cf., for example, Met. i.6 987b14-18, iii 2, xiii.1-2). This solution is the ancestor of many versions of platonism in mathematics.