(vii)


In bed, on his back, a clipboard held above his face. It had been that way with the boogieman, he thought: keep writing, and they can’t get you. Or it can’t. Or you can’t get yourself, but no, he thought, eschew self-reference, something abstract, something external, keep writing. Space. Time. No, not time, you have not time. Space. Was the metric intrinsic to the manifold? of course not, obviously not, what fool could have thought this, but, no, he thinks, don’t give Grünbaum too hard a time about it, even Weyl had seemed confused. A manifold. A manifold with boundaries [but then what lies beyond? No.] A sheet of paper, cut some holes out of it, how many ways could you do this in four dimensions. look in Milnor, maybe, no, don’t get up, you can look for it later, don’t get up, don’t move. [Don’t move.] The physical significance of the boundaries. Faces set on heads that melt like candles. Holes. The quantum theory of the holes. Little holes. Suppose the mass of a point-particle, but what was a point-particle, never mind, suppose the mass exceeded the Planck mass, then the Compton wavelength would be less than the Planck length, inadmissable, what then. Pair production. Things fall apart [no [no]] they factor. The strength of the interaction unity. Strong. How could there be holes at all. Consider the amplitude for factorization, were the mass to exceed the Planck mass. Work it out. Throw the sheets upon the floor, don't worry about them now, just work it out. In bed, on his back, a pencil to the clipboard held above his face. When I lie down I have a great fear of falling. Strange that it seems funny. Keep writing.