The Unbearable Lightness of Being String...(part 2)

Sinking of the Titanic...the painting, not the movie

Icebergs, in spite their usefulness in chilling one’s drink(s), pose some difficult problems in Gordon’s String Theory. Unlike continents, which drift apart or along or whatever with relative predictability due to being loosely tied together, icebergs careen hither and yon with such unpredictability that they have to be individually monitored or we risk utter chaos on the high seas! Remember the Titanic (the ship, not the movie)? So, the more astute amongst you will say (yawn), ‘Throw a rope around them and tie them to something. Problem solved. Where’s my rum and iceberg?’ Exactly! ‘Har har’ others scoff, ‘Do you have any idea how big an iceberg is?’ Ditto exactly! Last question first: In 1987 an iceberg with an area of 6350 square kilometers broke from the Ross Ice Shelf. That berg had a mass of around 1.4 trillion tonnes and could have supplied everyone in the world with 240 tonnes of pure drinking water*.  Try throwing a line around that bad boy! Of course that’s Antarctica, where nobody lives except mad scientists and penguins (with whom some have formed questionable relationships involving dancing, which fortunately for them is not a subject for this blog). Nearer to us, however, the largest recorded iceberg was encountered near Baffin Island in 1882. It was 13 km long, 6 km wide and had a freeboard (height above water) of about 20 m. The mass of that iceberg was in excess of 9 billion tonnes - enough water for everyone in the world to drink a litre a day for over 4 years*. Still, you might think, one can’t just tie something like that to a solid object and expect it to stay there. True. But that doesn’t stop people from trying, and it has been proven possible to lasso an iceberg:

An iceberg lasso awaits use in Newfoundland.

Towing icebergs was first scientifically demonstrated in 1971 in Newfoundland (of course! Where else? – ed.). It is now a common practice in the management of icebergs for the offshore oil industry. Towing may not be the best term however, as often massive icebergs are merely deflected slightly from their paths. The tow is arranged by a vessel navigating around a berg while paying out a floating tow line. A junction is made so that the berg is

Was the island in the background once an iceberg?**

lassoed and then tow tension is applied carefully to avoid rolling the berg or pulling the line over the top*. Well, there you go – the solution to Continental Drift is exactly what we need to solve Iceberg Drift! Big strings! What’s next? Glad you asked. Once you have a line around an iceberg, you just drag it towards shore until it grounds on the ocean bottom. Then you throw some dirt on it, plant some grass and before you know it you’ve got a new island! With lots of water inside. People and animals could live on it. There is credible speculation that this is exactly how the Vikings created Iceland (hint: the name!) a couple thousand years ago; in fact, most islands north of the 53^rd parallel were probably icebergs at one time, although the scientific proof of this is still being assembled. OK, there actually isn’t any yet, but it could be true, eh?  Never underestimate the tie that binds, that's what I say. Speaking of which:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U4PkMuw0mU

*True iceberg facts courtesy of www.IcebergFinder.com
Made up facts about everything courtesy of the author.
** Photo courtesy of Bonnie Lillies of Ferryland, Newfoundland, professional iceberg lassoer, who personally made the island in the photo and is working on another one using the iceberg in the foreground, as soon as she collects enough dirt. So she says, but it could just be the Black Horse talking, if you know what I mean, b'y...

The Unbearable Lightness of Being String ...(part 1)

There are times in the study of Gordon's String Theory when one is taken by surprise at what can only be described, however inadequately, as the 'absolute stringiness of string'...perhaps it is an odd location, or a particularly beautifully executed functionality, or even just an unusual colour or pattern. One finds oneself imagining artistic purpose behind our strung out universe...or not.

all the elegance of a sonnet, with none of the words...

In this installment we shall look at such examples of random perfection, the inherent entropy of string contrasted with its undeniably purposeful purposes. How, for example, are we to comprehend the utterly and beautifully pointless arrangement of a few feet of white string on an Irish beach, except in terms of poetry? It ties nothing together, it meanders, stranded on the strand between strands of seaweeds, sinuously beginning to insinuate its way around a sea urchin, carelessly casting a shadow while all the time lying motionless. The next tide will move it somewhere else, perhaps to rest again like a line of free verse in the sand, or perhaps coiled around some other detritus, at the whim of waves and particles, time and tides. I should have been a pair of ragged claws...whoops! lapsed into some real poetry there for a second! Sorry, won't happen again.

Not Butler's Garter Snake, but still a bit creepy when you're just strolling along

Or this, like snakes sunning themselves in the mud of the Fraser River floodplain? Wrapped around a doomed stick, the headless, tailless 

Butler's Garter Snake

form of a striped rope has all the menacing qualities of a simple garter snake, even though we easily see the two ends, still purposeful in their intention to connect to something......while beyond, another pale, dishevelled, twisted form lies like a cast-off skin.

Do not open the gate...if you wish to fall, climb over the fence

All that keeps the ocean at bay...

Highly specialized functional string: knitted iceberg grabbers

Far, far across the continent,  about as far across as one can go, in fact, another string is wrapped around two  pieces of reinforcing rod, pretending, it would seem, to be keeping the North Atlantic far, far below at bay as it chews away at Ferryland Point and the magnificent lighthouse thereon. Not very far (certainly not far, far) along the same cliff edge, a gate inexplicably perches, an invitation to the curious walker to the edge, while numerous strategically knotted knots prevent the inevitable plunge downwards, while mere inches to the right, a few thin strands would hardly accomplish the same, and, it would appear, perhaps haven't...Yes, that is an iceberg off in the distance. Other than almost endless winter from October to June, complete with howling gales and the lashing of blizzardly winds, frozen rain, snow, somebody's laundry, shed parts, small boats, dogs and cats, hail, gravel, moose* and forty kinds of driven sleet, Newfoundland is stunningly beautiful, when it isn't raining, drizzling or foggy. The locals prize the occasional bit of free ice in the hot, sunny summer day(s) - and who wouldn't at that price!- hence the readily available mittens, (knitting being possibly the most brilliant adaptation of string to the needs of humanity, with or without the adjoining idjit string) on these nearby posts for catching bergy bits as they drift into shore. Now there is ice cubes in a drink, but then... there is BERGY BITS in a drink! The difference is captured gasses highly compressed in 25,000-year-old bergy ice that create the most amazing effervescence when dropped into a glass of room temperature rum. Of course, you really have to be there to get the grand effect of the wonderful science, b'y!...

* all items, you will note, except for rain, snow, hail, gravel and sleet, that should be tied to something! Except moose. Don't try tying a moose to anything...

(to be continued)

Wanna get tangly?

Part of an entangled universe...

One of the problems with string, and therefore by extrapolation* with Gordon's String Theory, is that left to its own devices, string tends to get tangled. Anyone who has ever gone lake fishing knows that while you are quietly being a boat potato, minding your own business and opening another beer, your fishing line is mysteriously tying itself into a big knot, so when the big one gets hooked you can reel in about seventeen feet of line and then...big tangle. Again! So after the appropriate amount of cursing, out comes the rarely-used filleting knife and away goes the fish, with that $1.99 spinner from Can Tire. Hence the homily 'Give a man a fish and you'll save him a day of untangling his line; teach him to fish and you can untangle the goddam thing yourself'. 

Tangling is also a human phenomenon. Left to their own devices, humans will tangle as readily as any piece of string, sometimes in a friendly fashion to make more humans, or just for fun, but often not so, which explains war. Tangling as practiced by idiotic commercial fisherpersons on the high seas is why we can't have nice whales any more, amongst other creatures. However, we were talking about GST...which leads us to Entanglement Theory, today's topic. So if you pull one end of a piece of string that's just lying there doing nothing, the other end moves towards you, right? The opposite, pushing a piece of string, does not actually work, for some unknown reason. What you're really doing when you pull that string is you're pulling a bunch of atoms towards yourself that just happen to be lumped together and visible as string...but what if you just grabbed an atom and pulled IT towards you - would a bunch of invisible atoms follow along? Who knows? Just don't be trying this in public. But nevertheless, people who think about stuff like this (scientists), have devised ways to get 'particles' ** to more or less behave in ways that if you do something to one of them, a reaction occurs in a particle elsewhere in the universe because those particles are entangled, meaning they are somehow invisibly connected, like that invisible string you're trying to use to pull your beer along the bar (shortly before you get cut off). A lot of human tangling is, oddly enough, initiated in bars, although scientists have yet to study this to the extent to which it should be. 

In theory, any action at any point in this 'tangle' will cause a reaction elsewhere

To our right we have a model of the universe which fits all known laws of physics (not to mention our human sense of environmental aesthetics), which is clearly in a state of entanglement. What anybody can see is that if you push or pull or kick any part of this universe (or, at a quantum level, any 'particle'), something will happen almost instantaneously somewhere else in the tangle (but no faster than the speed of light, so you should be able to get out of the way). Regardless of what happens and where, however, the action and reaction will have occurred along a classical communication channel, or an observable physical pathway, even if it happens really fast.  What quantum physicists are trying to figure out is how to be able to predict where, what and how the 'something else' would happen and, if possible, without the need for a classical communication channel. Actually they sort of know how, but the where and what and why are still elusive. BUT, and this is the big but, if they could figure this all out and predict where the entangled particles would react to something done elsewhere in the universe, they could in theory make something that happens on earth, or anywhere for that matter, generate an instantaneous reaction somewhere else in the universe. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, there are a lots of physical laws that prevent us from actually doing theoretical things. Right now with even the best entanglements and channels, nothing can happen faster than the speed of light, which is pretty slow if you want to send somebody you're entangled with to Alpha Centauri for a vacation, for example (about ten years to get there and back at almost the speed of light. I mean, lots can change in ten years, eh?). Although the theoretical beauty of entanglement is fascinating, so far it's mostly being used by computer applications for encrypted information.  In science fiction, of course, it's the basic idea behind teleportation. It's also generating some interesting research in pure creativity and why we humans make various kinds of art. Here's a nice tune about entanglement:

https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=tangled+up+in+blue+bootleg+version&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35

* 'extrapolation' is one of my favourite words, as it can be used in the phrase 'by extrapolation' to suggest that something should be obvious to anyone with common sense, when it's not obvious at all!

** 'particle' is one of those words used by scientists to try to make things make sense. They aren't particles at all, at least not what normal people would call particles. Some particles are just theoretical, meaning they don't exist at all except in somebody's imagination. Somehow, some people get away with that kind of thinking, but lots don't. Artists do, sometimes, provided they actually do some work and don't just go around babbling about stuff in their imaginations.

Just walkin' and driftin'...

Our human stompin' grounds, Old Terra Firma...

There's this interesting mathematical modelling device called random walks, which amongst other things demonstrates that if you do a two-dimensional drawing of a random walk of a certain number of steps, you'll end up with a picture of something fairly random, not to mention abstract (try it! You'll see what I mean!). Apparently this is a useful tool with a lot of random applications, such as financial planning, or gambling as it is also known. But anyway you slice it, one thing is constant: any random walking is done on dry land (well, except for you know who...). And that dry land is/are our continents, as per the photo to the right. Random walks are associated with Brownian Motion, which is how we get on and off rapid transit, and which in turn is associated with entropy, a means of quantifying the energy in a system. All systems move naturally to a state of greatest entropy, which is a kind of universal laziness and explains readily observable phenomena such as couch potatoes.

...and a whole lot of random walks...

To the left we have a plot of a random walk of quite a lot of steps (I appropriated this, more or less, from a Wikipedia page, so it's real information, not just made up! - gt) . You'll notice that the walks are more or less separated into two clumps of information. Let your eyes wander back up to the satellite photo of the world, and you can see where I'm going with this...Continental Drift, a mechanism by which our planet seeks greater entropy, or 'couch-potatoeness', was probably caused by billions of people going on random walks over the past few hundred thousand years (I use the term 'people' to include everybody since we got down from the trees and started stomping around, more or less randomly, looking for a convenience store to get some smokes and a six-pack, maybe a hoagie and a 649 'financial planning' ticket). You'll notice there was a lot of random walking in Africa and up through Asia and Russia towards the Bering Strait - and also a lot around where Alaska is now, probably due to the land bridge that used to be there across the strait to the Walmart. Then there's a bunch of random walking up and down the Americas, probably after that land bridge disappeared and everybody was trying to find a way back home. All that stomping around must have had some effect on the planet, and sure enough the continents kind of got fed up with being treated like door mats and decided to split. By then it was too late, of course; people were procreating everywhere like rabbits, and the days of easy continental entropy on the Big Earthy Couch went the way of the dodo. This was before string was even invented, but the necessity was clearly beginning to be felt, if only to keep more 'stuff' from just drifting away, so to speak...Here's what Paul Butterfield had to say about it all, back in '67 at Monterey...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3LEhfbKCSc 

My sources tell me that was originally called 'Random Walkin' Blues', but who knows? Now, did you notice anything about that audience? Yes, some of them were stoned, or more precisely, a few of them might not have been stoned, or more precisely, totally stoned, but what about this: Did you see a single person who was looking at a GADGET!! No. You didn't. Peace, sisters and brothers.

Whither Continental Drift...?

A Continental String End in British Columbia...?

Everyone knows about continental drift, one of the physical manifestations of Tectonic Plate Theory, which essentially describes how Earth's largest land masses, aka continents, were once One Big Continent which split into smaller chunks which then began to move away from each other, mostly rather quietly and often at night when most people were sleeping. So we didn't really notice that Europe was a little bit further away each morning, until that fateful day when we realized we'd need more than a good pair of rubber boots to get there...Scientists have tried to explain how this could happen by suggesting it took place over billions of years. Fair enough...most people can't remember what happened last week, let alone where Australia used to be a million years ago (behind the shed with the barbie). But for G-String Theorists, there's a small problem: how come these continents haven't moved so far apart that they're not bumping into each other again on the other side of the world? Exactly! Enter Continental String Theory, a sub-theory of GST which postulates that the continents are tied together in a loose formation that prevents them from drifting too far apart. The actual mechanics of Continental String Theory are poorly

...while a brave pony keeps Ireland secure

understood at this time, as the theory is dependent on finding both ends of a what must understandably be very long Continental Strings, then proving that they are the same string. Nevertheless, new discoveries of possible Continental String Ends (CSEs) are raising tremendous excitement about possible new Continental String discoveries*. The above photo shows a possible CSE tied to a prehistoric lawnmower frame apparently abandoned in mid-mow on the banks of the Fraser River in British Columbia. The other end disappears into the river not far away, but the string is clearly under tension! Another example (right) is a possible CSE, also clearly under tension,  attached to a very fine and friendly pony in Ireland's Inishmaan, the middle of the three Aran Islands. Is it possible that this pony is all that prevents Inishmaan from floating away across the Atlantic Ocean to bump into New York City one dark and stormy night? Or Boston, which oddly enough seems to be a particular obsession of the Aran Islanders? Was Boston once part of the Aran Islands that floated away? These questions remain unanswered, and we must admit, highly speculative at this time.

*statements like this are intended to suggest something important is happening  that could procure additional research funding, so please don't point out that it actually says nothing. Think of the pony - wouldn't she like a nice juicy apple? You can help make that happen!

The Long and the Short of It...

One of the tantalizing, unanswered questions in GST is: 'Why are some strings

A classic nursery of Long Strings

long and others short?' My own research has turned up some interesting clues...for example, I've observed that long strings are often only attached to something at one end, while short strings are frequently attached at both ends. My hypothesis is that long strings are the young of the string world, still seeking some aspect of the cosmos to which to become attached, while short strings are older and have accomplished their goals of attachment. Or, to put it another way, short strings were once long strings; indeed, if one were to assemble numerous similar short strings, one might very well have a long string! We cannot guess at this point how many Original Long Strings might still remain in the universe, although it has been suggested that the universe as we know it began as One Big Ball of String. Some scientists have pointed out that there are just too many kinds of string for the Big Ball theory, that we now live in a multi-string universe, although this does not preclude the possibility that at one time there were many uni-string universes that are now all intermixed. This is sometimes referred to as the 'Lots of Balls' theory. Short strings are often thought of as the 'working strings' of the universe. They generally have clear purposes, and although the elements of the universe that they tie together are frequently commonplace, the mind shudders to consider the consequences if those

A typical Short String holds this ferry together

elements were allowed to separate and wander off willy-nilly! Research into Long and Short theories is sometimes complicated by the apparent co-existence of short and long strings in close proximity, although this does support the concept that short strings are possibly fragments of primordial long strings. How, for example, does a long string become multiple short strings? And why do we note that whereas there may be only one or two long strings in a group, there are often numerous short strings of varying thicknesses, colours, strands and composition - where are the original long strings from which they were derived? Although studies are ongoing and inconclusive, research suggests that a great deal of string shortening occurs near bodies of water. Given that the universe is about 80% water, this is not surprising; however, the relative proportion of Long String to Short String near water is revealing: for every 100 metres of Long String, there are 1729.3 kilometres of Short String!*

Is this the environment in which Long Strings become Short?

As the surface of the earth demonstrates approximately the same proportion of water as the rest of the universe, we can begin to see virtue in the possibility that string in general is plentiful near water because water is the medium by which the universe could float away, and it is string that ultimately prevents that by tying the more solid parts of our universe together, especially near water! Perhaps it is no accident that the word denoting the major structural component of a string - a 'strand' - also means 'beach'. Think about it!

* source unknown. I might have made those numbers up. Nobody said this was an exact science, so chill, eh?

Bill Gates and Gordon's String Theory...

A Bill Gate*, Inishmore, 21st C.

Well, one fine afternoon high on the rock road of Inishmore, I stood pondering the structure in the photo to the right. Its function appeared obvious: it was designed to keep some stones more or less lined up across the intervening space which it occupied...but why? As I pondered, an old fellow wandered along on his bicycle and stopped to ponder me. After a few minutes, he asked,  'And are yez enjoyin the day like?', to which I replied in the affirmative, to which he then inquired, 'And would yez be from America?', to which I replied in the negative, adding 'Canada'. 'Ah', he said, 'Dat would explain it, den'. Curious, I asked 'Explain what?' 'Why the fields, to be sure. You Canadians are the very divil for the fields. I saw a picture of a field in the county of Saskatchewan that must have been twice the size of all of Ireland, and I hear that was a small one, and there were a hundred thousand more that were twice that size, with herds of buffalo roaming about in them'. 'Something like that', I conceded, and then asked about the curious structure made of rope and wood. 'Who do you think built such a thing, and why?' 'Well, to be sure, I built it myself, didn't I?  To keep the cow in the field'. 'But there is no cow in the field'. 'Well, no, the cow has been let into another field this week'. It turned out that my interlocutor's name was Bill, and he had built this particular structure

Sophisticated rustification of geosphere and biosphere

and many more similar ones in the area. 'And what would you call this structure, Bill?' 'Well, I would call it a gate, but you Canadians may call it something else, to be sure'. Bill demonstrated how, with a simple hoisting of the outer wooden bar, the inner part of the structure could be pushed inwards and flattened, to allow passage in or out of the field, then the gate flipped back up and secured. Ingenious! I mentioned that I had seen many variations on enclosing structures around the country side, but this form seemed unique in its simplicity. "I think I will call them Bill Gates in my notes, in your honour if that's alright with you?' 'And why not? It's as good a name as any at all, is it not?' So, having established that detail of nomenclature, I began to explain to Bill the rudiments of Gordon's String Theory, within the context of which I would be considering the function of Bill Gates and associated fields as macro/ microcosmic colonies of enclosure,containment, exclusion, signified

The simple 4-bar with diagonal

The elegant double-knot horizontal

passage ways and controlled egress and exit, not to mention their possible  affiliations with bar structures, mathematical fields and their relationship to theories of the layered universe. Indeed, within this simple organization of space, loosely tied together, exist formal elements of the geosphere, the biosphere and the noosphere. Unfortunately, Bill suddenly remembered he'd been on his way to his sister's for supper and alas was already a bit late. So I will share with you a few more examples of Bill Gates and allow you too to continue admiring  their amazing string and wood elegance at your leisure, and of course, perhaps draw your own conclusions about their function in GST.

 *Please note that the term 'Bill Gate' is only used in GST - local nomenclature for this structural form may differ widely depending on location and common historical usage, and may not have been built by anyone named Bill…in fact, Bill himself may have been a figment of my imagination, brought on by too much exposure to wind, sun, rain and Guinness...

The Guinness Way...

Naturally as one pursues Gordon's String Theory, the

Our 'hood, The Milky Way

subject of our own tiny galactic corner of the universe  is bound to come up. Where did it come from, what is it tied to, why don't we just float away or go spinning off into oblivion? Indeed, the very word 'galaxy' refers specifically to our galaxy, the Milky Way, so it's not as if nobody's thought about it before. Pondering this very subject one damp day,  it was with great surprise that I stumbled across what appeared to be a crude model of our galaxy, possibly a child's toy, while walking down a road in Dingle on the west coast of Ireland. Some might  think it was just a mish-mashed ball of various strings, but that, of course, is the very meat and potatoes of GST, although more potatoes than meat in Ireland, it goes without saying. And very fine potatoes, too. But I digress...why would I suspect this was a  toy or model? An excellent question, and one that goes to the very heart of an Irish education. Note the apparent location: on the roadside, by a stone wall. Yes, you are all thinking 'Could there have been a hedge school here?' Well there could have been, but probably not in the 21st century, although it is true that for the better part of several centuries the famous 'hedge schools' of Ireland offered the only way for poor Catholic children to receive an education, and they did indeed receive excellent educations - in the classics, mathematics and in the reading and writing of 

Mish-mashed ball of string? Or...?

Irish, amongst other subjects - from impoverished Catholic schoolmasters who, in spite of their learning, were not welcome in the anglicized  'official' school system. So if we could find children learning Greek and Latin and mathematics in the shadow of a wall or hedge, why not a model of our own galaxy cleverly made of a ball of string? Yes I can hear the eyeballs rolling (he's really off his rocker this time!)! But let us look more closely. Our Galaxy is known as a barred spiral galaxy, meaning that it contains a central structure that has the visible appearance of a bar emanating light, created by billions of clustered stars along a central axis (see above photo, for example). Astronomers theorize that the bar is like an energy generator where new stars are born. Well I don't know about you, but that sounds to me like a very promising galaxy to live in! Indeed, according to my extensive scientific research in weighty volumes such as Wikipedia: '...Bars are thought to be a temporary phenomenon in the life of spiral galaxies, the bar structure decaying over time, transforming the galaxy from a barred spiral to a "regular" spiral pattern. Past a certain size the accumulated mass of the bar compromises the stability of the overall bar structure (we've all been there, eh?-GT). Barred spiral galaxies with high mass accumulated in their center tend to have short, stubby bars. Since so many spiral galaxies have a bar structure, it is likely that it is a recurring phenomenon in spiral galaxy development. The oscillating evolutionary cycle from spiral galaxy to barred spiral galaxy is thought to take on the average about two billion years. Recent studies have confirmed the idea that bars are a sign of galaxies reaching full maturity as the "formative years" end. A team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena discovered that only 20 percent of the spiral galaxies in the distant past possessed bars, compared with nearly 70 percent of their modern counterparts…'. Now that's what I call teamwork!

Looking a little more closely...is that a bar?

I will let you digest the implications of the above, but certainly if you have been looking at other spiral galaxies with thoughts of tying one on, make sure you pay attention to the '70 percent' detail. For G-String Theorists, however, the very existence of so many bars in the universe alleviates one of the central concerns of GST: where to get a decent beer on those long research rocket rides. But back to our ball of string - why think it is anything other than a ball of string? Again,  observation and a magnifying glass are all you really need to educate yourself in this world, my friends. And so it is, with a little poking and prodding and untangling, that we discover that our string model of the Milky Way does indeed possess a bar structure! Not a short, stubby one either (stubbies always were a Canadian phenomenon), more of a tall, rectangular one. Needless to say, having discovered this fine establishment at the heart of our model Milky Way, I did four things:

O'Flaherty's in Dingle, an excellent bar in our fine Galaxy.

I squeezed in, I quaffed a pint or two of Guinness, I began an inspired and no doubt rivetting lecture to everyone in attendance about Gordon's String Theory, and minutes afterwards remembered to take a photo. Unfortunately, all the musicians and clientele suddenly seemed to have recalled prior engagements, but nevertheless, here is proof of an excellent bar structure in our Milky Way string ball. The real thing can be found, surprisingly, about twenty yards along the very road I was walking on. Which I believe should be renamed the Guinness Way in honour of this very excellent discovery. And here's to hedge schools, too, while we're at it! Oh yes! Happy St.Paddy's Day to all..! And I'll have one more for the road, barkeep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219DbYyeA7g

How Does GST Work...?

A very good question, indeed. In order for the universe to be

A String Terminal Depot somewhere in Newfoundland

loosely tied together, it follows that each part must also be loosely tied together, and there must be some process(es)* for accomplishing this. As is frequently the case, a little walking around, empirical observation and intelligent deduction will get you further than googling GST on your gadgets. For example, what might one deduce from observing the information in the photograph on the right? Most casual observers might see a cluttered 'dock' in a small fishing village in Newfoundland, but to the G-String Theorist, this is your classic String Terminal Depot (STD). A vehicle is loading string and various objects that require being loosely tied together and delivered to some part of the universe. To date, no one has actually seen this process in action, but clues as to its mechanics can be found for those willing to look for them. The sharp-eyed observer will note that the String Transportation Device (STD, not to be confused with the String Terminal Depot, also an STD), locally codified as "jist a friggin boat, b'y!",  is clearly pointing east, so let's follow our noses...and yes, we soon discover where it was heading: a cow pasture in Ireland (below)! Skeptics may say we're stretching it a bit, except for this

'a poil of feckin labster traps'? or a Greater Cosmic Mystery?

tantalizing fact: the items in the cow pasture would normally be associated with the ocean (a local signifier signified these objects as "jist a poil of feckin labster traps, yiz bleedin' idjit!"), but the pasture is not even within sight of an ocean! Also, note the cow, an important clue to 'pasture'. How and why this is a necessary element of GST remains a mystery. The process, however, may be demystified by further observations. For example, note the planar structures leaning against the stone wall of the pasture. These structures are commonly found in this part of Ireland, often being utilized as moveable elements attached with string to similar stone walls, and apparently integral to the function of the walls. Further discussion of these unique and fascinating features of GST will be pursued in a future chapter. For the time being, we can theorize that Newfoundland and Ireland have some particular cosmic reason for being loosely tied together. We hope that further research, perhaps in my laboratory in the Yellow Belly Brewery in St. John's (or my satellite labs in Shamrock City and Fiddlers) will yield some clues as to the function of this connection within the overall workings of the cosmos. One hesitates to conjure up A Greater Intelligence, or A Grand Design, but something is clearly at work here that may be beyond our comprehension.

* I will occasionally use parentheses to add additional but otherwise useless punctuation, letters or other information to words or phrases to signify that I am a post-structuralist intellectual. If this bothers you, then you may be suffering from Late Modernism. See your doctor, if you have money and/or time to waste, or come to my local laboratory with a bottle of Islay single malt (any of them), and I will give you a free consultation regarding your unfortunate affliction.