A strange call

I spent almost the whole day reading Penrose’s Road to Reality. The book, despite its difficulty, still mesmerizes me. I am over half way through the mathematical preliminary. So far, the math is things I have studied in the past. Penrose’s quirky brusque presentation slows me down, yet in a good way since it makes me think through things anew.

However, I am an old man now. I do not have time to reconstruct things in detail I have forgotten. The challenge for me with this sort of thing is to translate ideas and arguments into my own sketchy visual terms. That takes time too, but I often find it useful later on.

About sundown, I walked down to the Loop and back on Michigan Avenue to enjoy the pleasant evening and mix with the overflow crowd on the avenue. That was not as relaxing as I had hoped. The Lake might have been a better choice.

I picked up Penrose when I got back home, kept reading until past midnight, and then watched a TV movie while lying on the couch. I hoped I would eventually fall asleep. After struggling for several hours, I slept for about an hour and a half. An infomercial for cosmetics finally knocked me out.

Drinking a half pot of coffee has forced my eyes open. The Penrose book is sitting beside me on the desk. It calls me. I cannot imagine what it wants with an old man, who really should be doing something more productive with his time.