(Diary) Spent the majority of the day thinking about a single problem that is ce

(Diary)
Spent the majority of the day thinking about a single problem that is central to the premise of the physical sciences, and aside from having to take a nap, it’s just slow going. A lot of the time, ‘work’ in these matters consists of finding some administrivia or housework to do while you try to find some way of explaining the impossible to explain.

In this case there is a reason everything in the universe is discreet, despite the influence of mathematics attempting to describe it as continuous. Now, this is one of those problems akin to ‘why does the universe have three plus one dimensions’ when the answer is it can’t have more, and the reason is quite trivial – but developing the intuition so that you can understand that triviality isn’t terribly easy.

The same is true of discreteness and for approximately the same reason. And I’m fairly certain this is one of those problems where the philosopher-scientist writes down that answer, but only some small percentage of theose that read the work can develop the intuition to truly comprehend the meaning of it.

So I’m sitting here closing in on midnight doing a bit of disk maintenance including cleaning up duplicates in Itunes and such, while I wrestle with what is likely to be one of those problems where I just have to let the autistic steam engine in my head do the work until the answer pops into my head while emptying the dryer, or doing dishes, or taking a shower…. sigh.