Another analogy
My thesis feels like trying to explain a hypercube (a 4 (or more) dimensional extrusion of a cube). You can draw a projection into 2D space but it doesn't really mean much.
With a hypercube, you can give a mathematical description, which I think is what my computer scientists might like... but it's more of a splidgy splodgy irregular shape. Each chapter is kind of like a cross-section. Interesting in themselves, but even taking cross-sections across several axes still doesn't truly give a good definition to the whole shape.
It's been rotating around in my head like the hypercube image below (from wikipedia) for some years now, so I have a good feeling for how everything fits together, but it's still only that. People just aren't good at visualising higher dimensional shapes, and the same sort of reaction seems to occur to my thesis.
200 pages might be too many to describe the outline of a shape, but 20 000 wouldn't be enough to truly even begin... and beginning to appreciate that makes an extra 20 hard to write.
With a hypercube, you can give a mathematical description, which I think is what my computer scientists might like... but it's more of a splidgy splodgy irregular shape. Each chapter is kind of like a cross-section. Interesting in themselves, but even taking cross-sections across several axes still doesn't truly give a good definition to the whole shape.
It's been rotating around in my head like the hypercube image below (from wikipedia) for some years now, so I have a good feeling for how everything fits together, but it's still only that. People just aren't good at visualising higher dimensional shapes, and the same sort of reaction seems to occur to my thesis.
200 pages might be too many to describe the outline of a shape, but 20 000 wouldn't be enough to truly even begin... and beginning to appreciate that makes an extra 20 hard to write.