It’s always nice to celebrate when classes are over for the quarter. But the spring quarter is special. When it is over it gives me a change of perspective and I can look forward to more free time to do research for the summer. The change also signals that most committee work is also on hold until the fall.
Just to celebrate I have added a picture of the beach below. This picture was taken recently from my phone at a beach.
Picture of the beach
You might rightfully say that that is not a beach. Well, it is a beach. It just happens to be covered with plants in the foreground. And the plants are obviously plants that only grow next to a beach. So for someone who knows, it is a picture of a beach. The picture was taken about one foot from the ground and if I had taken it from 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 feet from the ground, you would be able to see that the beach is there.
Obviously I’m thinking that the picture above is allegorical about research. Usually we get the perspective from the ground and we can not see what is ahead, even though we might be close to something we might be looking for (the beach). The picture from above usually comes later and makes everything obvious, including all the false leads and dead ends. But that usually only happens after a path has been marked by random explorers.
Right, I completely agree, but I can’t fail to mention that your picture of the “beach” is completely analogous to the 3D movie about string theory:
http://xkcd.com/848/
By the way, here are three pictures of the same beach that offer some hints of the duality:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lubos.motl/TheReferenceFrame4#5615453498483440146
https://picasaweb.google.com/lubos.motl/TheReferenceFrame4#5615453354357915442
https://picasaweb.google.com/lubos.motl/TheReferenceFrame4#5615453228410670658
However, if you really need to quantitatively understand how the flowers can attach their end points on the beach, you need to work a little bit. The relevant picture of the beach is here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lubos.motl/TheReferenceFrame4#5615453090795297330
I hope that if you hover your mouse above the objects, it will explain you what they are.