Monday, January 23, 2012
Is somebody trying to tell me something?
Unusual dream last night in that it appeared to be giving advice. Set maybe twenty years ago.
First element was what seemed in the dream to be a very important fact about the settlement after the Napoleonic wars, a settlement which by being generous to the losing side managed to hold for forty years rather than the twenty we managed after the first world war. The dream went on to say that Napoleon was so grateful that he presented Wellington with a deluxe edition of the collected works of Balzac, an anachronism for which I can offer no explanation.
Second element was my being promoted to manage a very important mathematical research project. A project which involved looking for very large numbers, rather in the way that you might look for very large stars, and in which I would have several direct reports which were far more experienced in the field, had far more track record in the field than I. In fact, it was not clear that I had any track record at all. The chap who promoted me explained that it was time to focus if I wanted to achieve anything and I must set an example to myself by not going to some very important meeting to share the very important factlet about Napoleon and Balzac with them. It was also apparent that he had some agenda of his own in promoting me, nothing much to do with my welfare.
Third element was my being carted off on a bus around the periphery of Paris looking for something or other connected with the mathematical project. I was a bit puzzled that we were in a double decker bus and that the bit of outer Paris that we were in looked very much like outer London. Never seen a double decker bus in Paris and I am reasonably sure that outer Paris does not look much like outer London. It would have a distinctly French flavour.
While waking up, I started to wonder what finding a very large number might involve. Sure we know there are lots of them, so perhaps finding one means finding some feature of the natural world to which that number is appropriate. Part of the game seemed to be that the number had to be exact, which might translate as integral. Would the number of phosphorus atoms in the box of matches qualify? Is that actually an exact number, or at the margins is there far too much coming and going for one to be exact? And then, even a small number like the number of planets circulating our sun is not very determinate just presently, with much dispute about exactly which lumps of rock count as planets. All in all, a rather difficult project. Will I make any progress?
First element was what seemed in the dream to be a very important fact about the settlement after the Napoleonic wars, a settlement which by being generous to the losing side managed to hold for forty years rather than the twenty we managed after the first world war. The dream went on to say that Napoleon was so grateful that he presented Wellington with a deluxe edition of the collected works of Balzac, an anachronism for which I can offer no explanation.
Second element was my being promoted to manage a very important mathematical research project. A project which involved looking for very large numbers, rather in the way that you might look for very large stars, and in which I would have several direct reports which were far more experienced in the field, had far more track record in the field than I. In fact, it was not clear that I had any track record at all. The chap who promoted me explained that it was time to focus if I wanted to achieve anything and I must set an example to myself by not going to some very important meeting to share the very important factlet about Napoleon and Balzac with them. It was also apparent that he had some agenda of his own in promoting me, nothing much to do with my welfare.
Third element was my being carted off on a bus around the periphery of Paris looking for something or other connected with the mathematical project. I was a bit puzzled that we were in a double decker bus and that the bit of outer Paris that we were in looked very much like outer London. Never seen a double decker bus in Paris and I am reasonably sure that outer Paris does not look much like outer London. It would have a distinctly French flavour.
While waking up, I started to wonder what finding a very large number might involve. Sure we know there are lots of them, so perhaps finding one means finding some feature of the natural world to which that number is appropriate. Part of the game seemed to be that the number had to be exact, which might translate as integral. Would the number of phosphorus atoms in the box of matches qualify? Is that actually an exact number, or at the margins is there far too much coming and going for one to be exact? And then, even a small number like the number of planets circulating our sun is not very determinate just presently, with much dispute about exactly which lumps of rock count as planets. All in all, a rather difficult project. Will I make any progress?
# posted by Jim @ 12:11 AM 
