CALL ME SNAKE

I’ve hit a dead end, a brick wall, a temporary impasse. I’ve spent several hours lately speaking with mathematicians at Stanford and Harvard about using tools of nonlinear analysis (minimal surfaces in geometry) to solve classic problems in general relativity. It sounds pretty straightforward but I cannot quite understand it. And until I do understand, I cannot go forward (though perhaps I can go sideways; good idea, maybe I’ll try that!) That doesn’t happen so often. Sure everyone needs some help understanding things sometimes. So you talk to somebody, ask a few questions, and figure it out. If you’re really stuck, you talk to a second person or a third, hoping that with another perspective or two, it will all fall into place. And I’ve tried all that. But this time it is not falling into place. The trouble now is that I’m not sure how many more “perspectives” are out there. And whether it will help. And whether I will be permanently stuck. Which would make my problem the opposite of Billy Pilgrim’s who was permanently unstuck.