All research and progress boils down to Brownian Loop Soup.
Someone/something having a result showing a connection does not mean they have explored "the way" to do it.
Not even the most elegant mathematically perfect solution is guaranteed to be the best way to crack a problem, or provide a definite answer.
Meandering paths through whatever we set our minds to do and serendipity is the way of human beings for the past few hundred millennia.
the earth is round, but not really quite.
Gravity is 10 m/s*2, but not quite, it’s the same everywhere on earth, but not really.
A day is 24 hours, but not actually.
A year is 365 days, except it’s not, and the leap years correct for the disparity, but not exactly.
Light travels at c, but not across all distances, or through all mediums.
There’s no sound in space, but there is wind, and it does sort of carry vibrations in a way that roughly is what we mean by sound
Space is really really cold, but it’s not actually cold, hot/cold doesn’t measure the same way
- it’s not about lying, that’s the wrong way to say it. We explain too simply.
We lie by omission…
The point of Pratchett is to make fun of how the university humbles the students, trading their self-assurance in their knowledge for actual knowledge that is dried inside its books
