Can a bag of string answer all my questions?
A few minutes ago, the dog was in my face. Something, on the edge of her tongue; an idea. She wanted (I think) to go outside, lie on the stoop with a toy and watch the world go by. But, the words escaped her. All she could get out was a sibilent yowl, expressing frustration at our interspecies communications barrier. I did what I could, taking her to the door, attaching a cobbled-together long lead and wishing her a good hair day (it is rather windy right now) as she took up her post on our eastern boundary.
This nests well with a documentary we’re watching, which presents the basics of string theory. I admit that the arguments went “right over my head”, unrestrained by gravity. After all my time as a student, I’m faced with something that was formulated after the cessation of my formal studies. A theory (unproven) that cannot mesh with my years of three-dimensional physics (OK, one year, but I can expand time and motion with the best of them).
A theory of everything: doesn’t the average teenager already have one of those? Hasn’t the world of those in their second decade of life already been distilled down to three desires?
I’d be happy to espouse a new theory of everything, one that put those eleven dimensions into a mapped structure I could Google at will. Sadly, that’s unlikely to happen. We’re still (on average) not up to the mindgames of a Hawking. We have trouble with finding the shorter path to the mall. Trying to manipulate a pile of strings into something that has form is limited to those who have mastered knit and purl.
Perhaps, if we’re going to spend billions on research into the elusive black hole, or the origins of time, we could put a few minutes into the puzzle which one of the commercials presented during the documentary. How is it that Mazda is already selling their 2010 models?
Traditions depend on continuity, so here is the annual snow calendar. I know that someone, somewhere has been waiting.
