Jigsaw Trap Quotes

These fields, which govern the interaction of all subatomic particles, are now called Yang-Mills fields. However, the puzzle that has stumped physicists within this century is why the subatomic field equations look so vastly different from the field equations of Einstein-that is, why the nuclear force seems so different from gravity. Some of the greatest minds in physics have tackled this problem, only to fail. Perhaps the reason for their failure is that they were trapped by common sense. Confined to three or four dimensions, the field equations of the subatomic world and gravitation are difficult to unify. The advantage of the hyperspace theory is that the Yang-Mills field, Maxwell's field, and Einstein's field can all be placed comfortably within the hyperspace field. We see that these fields fit together precisely within the hyperspace field like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle. The other advantage of field theory is that it allows us to calculate the precise energies at which we can expect space and time to foem wormholes.

He talked about the trappings of the White House, saying something to the effect of “This is luxury. And I know luxury.” I remember glancing again at the one poor statue I could see over his shoulder with the mantelpiece on its head and thinking that made sense. He went into another explanation—I’d seen many of them on television—about how he hadn’t made fun of a disabled reporter. He said he hadn’t mistreated a long list of women, reviewing each case in detail, as he had in our earlier conversation. There was no way he groped that lady sitting next to him on the airplane, he insisted. And the idea that he grabbed a porn star and offered her money to come to his room was preposterous. His method of speaking was like an oral jigsaw puzzle contest, with a shot clock. He would, in rapid-fire sequence, pick up a piece, put it down, pick up an unrelated piece, put it down, return to the original piece, on and on. But it was always him picking up the pieces and putting them down. None of this behavior, incidentally, was the way a leader could or should build rapport with a subordinate.

Adults play, too (or should). When your kid sees you and a friend sitting in a lawn chair in your front yard or backyard, or on your porch or sidewalk, chatting, laughing, and enjoying yourselves over the beverage of your choice, you’re modeling for your kid that a joyful life includes relaxation and hanging out with friends. Adult play also includes the various hobbies and things we do “for ourselves” or “just for fun.” Let your kids see you tinker in the garage, practice your guitar, roll a skein of yarn, work a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, or whatever it is you do that constitutes fun in your own life. (And if you’re thinking, “What fun?” take notice of that and do something about it.)

My work since 1981 has been to put that jigsaw puzzle together. Here’s how the picture looks once the various parts are snapped in place. Social animals are linked in networks of information exchange. Meanwhile, self-destruct mechanisms turn a creature on and off depending on his or her ability to get a handle on the tricks and traps of circumstance. The result is a complex adaptive system—a web of semi-independent operatives linked to form a learning machine. How effective is this collective learning mesh? As David Sloan Wilson discovered, a group usually solves problems better than the individuals within it. Pit one socially networked problem-solving web against another—a constant occurrence in nature—and the one which most successfully takes advantage of complex adaptive system rules, that which is the most powerful cooperative learning contraption, will almost always win.