Everything I Know, Section 5

gist

Thinking itself generates geometry: holding off too-large and too-small irrelevancies yields a tetrahedron, the minimum system with an inside and an outside. Vector equilibrium is the first nuclear array, twelve spheres around one, with volume twenty when the tetrahedron is one, and frequency of modular subdivision governs its layers. Experiential rope models replace the mathematician's imaginary straight line with waves. Energy travels high-tension convex surfaces, which is why charges stay on the outside of a hollow sphere.

ideas

• Thinking produces a polyhedron. Dismissing macro and micro irrelevancies leaves a lucid set whose minimum inside-outside system is the tetrahedron.
• Vector equilibrium is the first nucleus. Twelve around one is the minimum nuclear array; the cube has no inherent center sphere.
• Frequency is second-power growth. Closest-packed layers follow frequency squared times ten plus two, matching wave and gravitational second powers.
• Straight lines are imaginary. Physics finds only waves and curves; a deliberately non-straight rope can be tensed toward the mathematician's line.
• Energy follows high tension. Charges ride the convex, higher-tension surface, so a hollow sphere can hold millions of volts outside while the interior stays safe.

quotes