Robert Roper's biography of Everest climber and professor of philosophy Willi Unsoeld contains the following thought-provoking quote from the great mountaineer: "In the Outward Bound programs parents would ask us, 'Can you guarantee the safety of our Johnny?' And our response would usually be, 'No, we certainly can't , ma'am. Fact is we go the other way and and guarantee you the genuine possibility of his death . And if we could guarantee his safety, the program wouldn't be worth running - do you see?'" This important wisdom can be paraphrased as follows: "Concertgoers would ask the music director, "Can you guarantee I will like everything in your program?" And the music director should reply, 'No, we certainly can't , ma'am. Fact is we go the other way and and guarantee you the genuine possibility that you will hate at least one work. And if we could guarantee you will like everything, the concert would not be wort...
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http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/publications/catalogues/index.html
It would be just dandy if string theory merely predicted those extra dimensions. The problem is that string theory depends on those extra dimensions (a total of 11 at last count) for its very existence. Absent those extra dimensions, string theory collapses as a viable theory of anything, much less everything.
ACD
Hi, I enjoy your blog. Your post on string theory made me wonder whether you've bumped into the connection between higher dimensional geometry and music, but there are some interesting connections.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/07/07/950.aspx
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582330,00.html
Am actually writing about one of the "On an Overgrown Path" pieces, which makes a very interesting use of scales ...
Dmitri Tymoczko
Assistant Professor of Music
Princeton
http://music.princeton.edu/~dmitri