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Greene: The Elegant Universe

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Brian Greene’s popular work on string theory, The Elegant Universe, lays out the potential “theory of everything” in understandable prose, and describes the evolution of physics that led up to its formulation.

When I call the prose understandable, I mean that in a relative sense. It’s not a Hunger Games-type read, but if you’re not frightened away by the idea of curved space-time, supersymmetry, and 6 (or 7) tightly wrapped invisible dimensions, you’ll be fine. I majored in physics in college, so I approached The Elegant Universe with a decent base level of understanding, but I’d certainly never delved into string theory before. I had always just kind of imagined it as it sounds: a universe composed of very small vibrating strings. And it turns out, that’s pretty much what it is. With lots of nuances and implications and difficult math. Greene does a terrific job of bringing out the core of the theory in a comprehensible and natural way, and ultimately gives a compelling case for the theory being a big step toward the elusive “Theory of Everything.”

The first half of the book describes the theories preceding string theory, namely general relativity and quantum mechanics. Greene makes the transition from Newtonian physics to general relativity seem almost intuitive. The math is the really hard part, but it is fun to imagine what it means for space to be warped and curved in a gravitational field (not just the objects, but the actual extent of space). And it is fun to try to imagine the most immense objects in the universe – and then to conceive of distances so great that those objects appear vanishingly small. I’ve always found this line of thinking much more natural and exciting than going the direction, that is, zooming in so far that quantum mechanics comes into play.

Quantum mechanics was one of the top reasons I stopped doing physics after college, which I would guess is not an uncommon reaction. It is physically counter-intuitive, but the part that got me is that it is really only accessible through the math. Despite all of its obscurity, quantum mechanics is the most precisely measured theory out there. Nobody really knows why it works, but it works better than anything else we’ve ever come up with. Kind of infuriating. And I think that my preference for general relativity over quantum mechanics also tells something about how my mind works. I definitely prefer losing myself in big, expansive (right brain?) thoughts rather than the precise mechanical details (left brain?).

The second half of the book focuses on string theory itself – its conception, evolution, and current (as of a decade ago) highlights and issues. The idea behind string theory (or M-theory, which is thought to encompass string theory) is very elegant indeed. Rather than the universe being made up of point particles (i.e electrons, quarks, muons, neutrinos, etc) that have literally zero spatial extent, string theory claims these particles are actually tiny vibrational waves, little closed loops, dancing around the cosmos. Strings that vibrate more have higher energy, and thus higher mass. They can interact with each other in all sorts of ways, which we call the gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak forces. The fact that the particles have non-zero spatial extent helps resolve the fundamental incompatibilities between general relativity and quantum mechanics while preserving the core of each.

The difficulty again is the math. It’s really hard to do these calculations, and in fact even figuring out the exact equations that need to be solved is still beyond us. Oh, it also gives rise to 6 (in string theory itself, 7 in the broader M-theory) tightly curled up, invisible dimensions beyond the 4 extended space-time dimensions we are familiar with.

The most enjoyable part of the book for me was revisiting a topic I used to be very familiar with that I have left to collect dust in the back of my mind. It reminded me of my initial excitement about physics, for seeking an elegant solution to a physical problem and for connecting laws in such a way that physical reality makes a little bit more sense. The text itself made me want to get back into physics and try my hand at some of the more fundamental questions out there.

The end notes, however, quickly quashed this desire. They are exactly the reason I did not stay in physics. All the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and what’s left is only accessible through obscure mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry, and perturbation theory. It is a field where months and years of intense focus on calculations can yield no useful results. This sounds painful to me. Again, I’d much rather have my head in the clouds than in the weeds. I suspect my relationship with physics will stay at the “general overview” stage from here on out, enjoying books like The Elegant Universe or A Brief History of Time, while watching TED talks to see what’s on the cutting edge of the field.

My hand

Rock Climbing on the Right Side of the Brain

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What do rock climbing and drawing have in common? I’ve been spending a good amount of time doing each recently, and I’ve found that they are more similar than I would have guessed.

I’ve done a lot of drawing over the course of my life and filled up a number of sketch books in the process. In the past couple years, though, I’ve shifted more of my creative energy to painting, and drawing has fallen by the wayside. To get back into it, a friend recommended to me Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I’ve started working my way through the book, following the exercises on contour and shape. It turns out I’ve done most of these exercises at some point previously, but I’ve never been consciously aware of the shift to right-brain mode that goes with them.

As for rock climbing, I’ve dabbled for about eight years, but I started getting serious about it three and a half years ago. It has worked out that I’ve had the most free time (between jobs, unemployment) during the winters, which has made me very familiar with the rock climbing gym. I’ve had a number of plateaus in my climbing ability, but I’ve put it some solid effort and training this winter and have progressed to a fairly advanced level.

So what’s the deal, how are the physicality of rock climbing and the creativity of drawing connected?

In essence, they are different ways of interacting with the same things: space, dimensionality, and texture. In drawing, you use your eye to follow an object, to perceive the way light reflects off the grooves, indentations, bulges, and flats. In rock climbing, you use your hands and body to do the same thing. You perceive the physical properties of the rock through your sense of touch. In both endeavors, it took me quite a while to realize the importance of utilizing this perception.

Rock climbing is very difficult as a beginner. It engages a whole new set of muscles, so even someone who has gotten incredibly strong through weight lifting will probably have a lot of trouble (and there’s something cathartic about watching beefy guys struggle to get up a wall). You spend a long time grasping for something to hold on to before building up the finger and core strength and awareness to move through routes smoothly.

My hand

Drawing of a hand familiar with rock climbing.

As the fingers strengthen, though, one gains awareness of subtleties in the body and the rock. I especially notice this in the climbing gym where the same hand holds get reused over and over again. As I improve (over months, to give a sense of scale), my sensation of a particular hold changes. This evolution happens slowly, maybe I find there is a certain angle and finger position that feels a little bit more stable than I remember. A groove feels slightly deeper, a ridge sharper. At some point, holds which I couldn’t imagine clinging to before are suddenly accessible, even easy to hold on to.

New awareness in the fingers leads to new awareness of the whole. The space between the hand holds becomes more concrete. With additional core strength, the body can navigate this space smoothly and efficiently. This becomes ingrained in the body’s movement; the brain quiets and lets the perception of shape take over.

This may be beginning to sound a little bit more like drawing. Although I’ve been engaging in a shift to my right-brain while doing art for years, I wasn’t conscious of what that really meant until I started working through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The main focus of the book is teaching the reader to see. Not just to recognize an image or object as something it already knows, but to explore the edges with the eye, see the negative shapes between objects, experience the subject as it really is. It turns out the right side of the brain is really good at this, and the left side of the brain is really bad at it. Unfortunately, the left side usually wins out for our attention and suppresses this deep right-brain perception with logic and symbols.

Now that I have an idea of what to look for, I’ve noticed some changes that occur when I’m able to reach that right-brain mode. The most obvious shift is to extreme focus. Time drops away, external stimuli become difficult to process, distractions lose their appeal. I am able to look closely and carefully, and to slowly trace an object with my eye. My hands are well trained enough to respond to this perception by copying it. I can quickly tell if there is a discrepancy between the object and my interpretation of it and make an appropriate change. The deeper into the zone I get, the clearer the textures, contours and shapes become, and the easier they are to translate onto the page. It is a blissful feeling of awareness.

I’ve improved my level of perception of shape through sight and touch, and I am curious how perception through the other senses evolves when well trained. I imagine there must be corollaries for smell, taste, and hearing. Although I’ve played music my whole life, I can’t say that I feel a deep connection to hearing. Perhaps the creation of sound is distinct in the brain from the perception? I’ll have to look into that. I think my music could use a good dose of right-brain focus.

Crater lake is the best.

Fixed Gear Riding

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Since my last post about biking in a city, a lot of people have asked me why I ride a fixed gear bicycle. Isn’t it more dangerous? Doesn’t it make hills miserable? What’s the deal? Are you a hipster? I’ve been riding mostly fixed gear for about four years (with the exception of bike touring in Italy), and I love it.

You only get to choose one gear ratio for a fixed gear bike, and it’s an important choice. A lot of people aim for a ratio of close to 2 for city riding (twice as many teeth on the chain ring by your feet as on the back wheel hub). This makes going up hills and stopping with just your feet a bit easier, but it means your feet really spin when you’re going fast. I opted for a gear ratio closer to 3, which lets me build up a little bit more speed. It makes some hills devastating, and it means I use my hand brake more often to control my speed. For longer rides, it’s key for getting through long flat stretches.

Anyway, here are the top five reasons I ride a fixie:

1. Control

Riding a fixie gives one a whole different sense of control of the bicycle. The difference between fixed and free wheels is that the fixed wheel has no ratcheting mechanism in the back hub. When you crank the pedals, the back wheel spins proportionally to your pedal stroke. If you pedal slower, the wheel spins slower. If your feet are stationary, the wheel is stopped. You can even pedal backwards if you’re good. With a free wheel, when you stop pedaling, you coast as far as your momentum will take you. The direct control over the back wheel means you can make minor adjustments to your velocity without braking, and you can come to a complete stop relatively quickly without brakes. Maybe I am a control freak? Some riders remove brakes from their bikes completely, but this is a pretty bad idea in general. It works if you live in a kind of flat place, or if you have a poor sense of self-preservation and live somewhere like San Francisco. It basically necessitates using skid stops, which is when you crank hard on the pedals to stop the back wheel despite your forward momentum, causing your back wheel to lock up and skid to a stop.

2. Simplicity

There are two primary forms of simplicity in the fixed gear: simplicity in mechanics, and simplicity in riding. The mechanics are easy to figure out and easy to tune up. It is a bicycle stripped down to its most essential. No derailleurs, and so no alignment issues, very few chain issues, and no shifting cables to worry about. I built my bike up with a friend in Eugene, which was a great way to see how the whole thing works. If you keep it clean and tightened, this bike will stay solid. In terms of riding, you always have one less thing to think about. You never have to worry about gear selection. When you come to a hill, you have to pedal harder. You don’t have to think about what gear ratio is going to get you up the hill with the least amount of effort, and you don’t have to click around through your gears to find it. This may seem like a small thing, but I enjoy the simplicity in it.

Crater lake is the best.

A friend and I rode around Crater Lake in Oregon. Mine is on top.

3. Momentum

When you ride a free wheel bike (one that can coast), there is a dead spot at the top of your pedal stroke. It’s the spot when your foot is at the top of the stroke when you’re transitioning between pulling up and pushing down. With a fixie, your momentum keeps the pedals moving, so you actually get a little push from the bike instead of having a dead spot. The bike always wants to keep moving. It is responsive to your adjustments and provides feedback on how it’s moving directly to your feet. As an added bonus, the fixed gear ratio allows you to calculate statistics about your ride on the fly. One time I went on a 135 mile ride with a friend from Eugene to the ocean and back. On the way, I figured out that the whole ride would entail 34,000 pedal strokes (I was a little bit off because I simplified pi).

4. Exercise

Riding a fixie is better exercise than a regular geared bike. To slow down, you have to resist the pedals turning, so you get resistive force on your legs in addition to explosive. Because I don’t get to gear down for hills, I generally end up riding harder up them. I know if I lose too much momentum I won’t be able to get it back without some serious effort. On the way down the hill, I end up going slower because I have to pedal the whole way. This requires some resistive force to keep from losing control, which makes it a great workout no matter the terrain.

5. Silence

This bike is quiet. Free wheels click as they spin, but a fixed wheel doesn’t have any ratcheting parts, so it is completely silent. Well, at least when it’s well oiled and aligned. My bike has been having some other unhappy sounding clicks and scratches, but that’s just because it’s desperate for a tune up right now. There is something wonderful about sailing down a road, fully engaged with the ground, not making a sound.

Riding a fixie may not be for everyone, but I really enjoy it. If you’ve got some time to burn, check out some Youtube videos of people doing tricks on their fixies. Really impressive, and really crazy. In order to move one step closer to being able to join the circus, I’ve been practicing my no-handed track stands. Once I’m able to play ukulele while I balance on my bike, I think I’ll have a chance.

Doing yoga!

What I Think About When I Do Yoga

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It seems like everyone is doing yoga right now, and there are probably just about as many ways to think about yoga practice as there are people doing it. I think it’s great that it’s become a big thing, and it has certainly had a major positive influence on my life. I’ve read a number of pieces on what is going on when you do yoga, and particularly like this one. The NY Times also just presented some reasons not to do yoga, which I thought was a little extreme. I don’t know much about the history or tradition of yoga, but I like doing it and I like thinking about it.

The first time I tried yoga was when I was in kindergarten. I don’t remember much about the year other than that. It was really fun, and my teacher was great. After that I didn’t touch it again until the end of high school, and I didn’t practice regularly until college. From there I took classes occasionally, and mostly did that when I could find a good deal or take it through school. About a year ago I started to listen to podcasts and practice in my room. Now I try to do this about three times a week, and it has been by far the most committed and enjoyable my yoga experience has been.

One of the most cited reasons to do yoga, and one of my biggest drivers, is the confluence of mind, body, and spirit. It’s great to have an activity that covers several different needs simultaneously. It loosens and limbers the body, calms the mind, and engages the spirit. I like the focus on energy and the mindfulness that comes along with it. I also like that it is not actually about the stretching. Going to the gym is a one-purpose activity. There’s not much you can do there beyond strengthening the body. With yoga, the strain on your body is a tool for actively strengthening your mind and expanding your spirit. Putting your body in a stressful position while keeping your mind calm and focused is practice for dealing with real-life stress.

Now that I’ve practiced a good deal on my own, I’ve found that I generally prefer that to a class. Maybe I’m just antisocial, but I like moving at my own pace and being able to focus on how my body and mind feel without the distraction of the people around me. I also like the repetition of doing pretty much the same movements over and over again. It makes it feel more like practice. I do occasionally miss the social atmostphere of a class and the variety and presence a live teacher brings, but usually I prefer to be alone.

And how do I actually feel when I do yoga? It’s hard to describe. The body leads the way for me, bringing my mind to a calmer state, and eventually generating a swell of warmth and contentment. I usually begin slightly stiff and tense from sitting at a desk and looking at a screen for most of the day. As I go through some gentle downward dogs and warrior poses, my muscles slowly start to give. Muscle fibers stretch, and strength and awareness begin to assert themselves in my body.

I find the physical discipline of keeping myself steady and at my edge is what initiates and grows my mental discipline. Through supporting my body’s effort to stay strong and steady, my mind releases its points of tension and pain, smoothes and steadies itself in the process. I find I’m more able to stay buoyant despite difficulties or sluggishness of the day. Some days I’m not able to get there, with my mind so crowded that I have trouble even staying focused through 20 minutes of yoga, let alone an hour and a half.

When I’m having a focused and strong session, though, my sense of body shifts slightly. As I go through more poses, I shed deeper layers of tension. My heels drop closer to the ground and my hips open a bit. I begin to be aware of subtler movement and tension in my joints and tissue. The warmth and energy from these sensations lay the foundation for the spiritual aspect of my practice. Rather than feel like I am straining a muscle, I feel like the muscle is engaging just to the minimum level of effort require to hold a pose steadily. Balance comes from exploring this boundary of effort. Shifting slowly from barely too much to barely too little in decreasing oscillations. Just at the limit, there is a feeling of engagement with one muscle, like the quad, and total relaxation of the opposing muscle, the hamstring.

This is where I begin to feel my breath. I try to maintain the “ugai” breath, but I’ve always had trouble aligning it to my movements. This is something I definitely want to keep working on, as I think it will bring fluidity to the practice. When I’m still, however, I use the breath to deepen a pose, release the tension in my brain, and to invite energy to flow throughout my body. I feel my lungs filling with air to their corners, expanding from my chest to where my body is tight or restricted. Energy draws from limbs, fingers, and toes, and eddies throughout my body. In prayer pose, there is a warmth between my hands which further calms my nervous system and deepens the spiritual aspect of the practice.

As I’ve gained body awareness over time, I’ve found that attention to certain details helps immensely. Slightly adjusting, or even just being aware of the angle and rotation of a bone or limb adds depth to a pose. Especially in the angle of the hipbone, the rotation of thigh bones, and articulation of the shoulders, I find that this can make a routine pose activate fully. Also, engaging a muscle while it’s being stretched and keeping a firm core throughout both build a warmth which spreads through the body. Gaining core strength through rock climbing has definitely improved my awareness and granted access to new levels of sensation and precision in these movements.

I’ve always been glad to have yoga with me through the various places my life has taken me, and I look forward to bringing it with me where I go from here. It is a solid, calming force, and I think it lays a good foundation for my emotional and intellectual well-being. I’m not sure if I’ll ever have the opportunity to do yoga more often than I am now, but it’s definitely something I’m curious about. I think something like a month-long focused practice would help expand my consciousness and mindfulness in a big way.

How do you feel about yoga? I’d love to hear your stories and observations!