When It All Falls Into Place
In the beginning of "The Ghosts of Christmases Past," protagonist Brenda Redmond is worried that showtime is only days away and the young players are still struggling with their lines. Her co-teacher and co-director reassures her that, while it may look like there's no way they can get this thing ready in time, they're approaching the point where everything comes together and they're ready to go. Given this is a story with a happy ending, Tessa turns out to be right -- but only after Brenda struggles through some truly unnerving events.
I've had a fair amount of actual experience with this phenomenon. Not just as an amateur thespian in the high school play, but also building floats for our school's Homecoming parade, in which the first few nights of work seem to be going so slowly that there's no way we'll finish, but by the final night we have a float that's ready to go (a phenomenon that gets a passing mention in "One Last Homecoming"). More recently, I've seen that phenomenon when writing a story to a tight deadline. I only have a few days left, and the story looks like a pile of pieces and there's no way I can get them pulled together into a complete story with a beginning, middle and end -- but I keep pushing and then things start to click and I can see how everything fits together to bring me to the finish line before it's too late.
A physicist who's also an avid crossword puzzle solver has also noticed that phenomenon, of how one initially struggles with the clues, but as one gets more and more answers right, it soon becomes easier to finish those last few. Maybe you start realizing that a clue needs to be read in a different sense of the word, or realize that an earlier answer was incorrect. But it all resembles a physical process known as phase transition, and specifically one called "explosive percolation."
McSweeney's work looks very interesting, because it may have the potential to help us understand a vast range of situations in which slow progress sort of "turns a corner" and becomes a rapid race to completion -- and perhaps to understand just how that early slow progress builds to the inflection point at which "it all comes together."
I've had a fair amount of actual experience with this phenomenon. Not just as an amateur thespian in the high school play, but also building floats for our school's Homecoming parade, in which the first few nights of work seem to be going so slowly that there's no way we'll finish, but by the final night we have a float that's ready to go (a phenomenon that gets a passing mention in "One Last Homecoming"). More recently, I've seen that phenomenon when writing a story to a tight deadline. I only have a few days left, and the story looks like a pile of pieces and there's no way I can get them pulled together into a complete story with a beginning, middle and end -- but I keep pushing and then things start to click and I can see how everything fits together to bring me to the finish line before it's too late.
A physicist who's also an avid crossword puzzle solver has also noticed that phenomenon, of how one initially struggles with the clues, but as one gets more and more answers right, it soon becomes easier to finish those last few. Maybe you start realizing that a clue needs to be read in a different sense of the word, or realize that an earlier answer was incorrect. But it all resembles a physical process known as phase transition, and specifically one called "explosive percolation."
McSweeney's work looks very interesting, because it may have the potential to help us understand a vast range of situations in which slow progress sort of "turns a corner" and becomes a rapid race to completion -- and perhaps to understand just how that early slow progress builds to the inflection point at which "it all comes together."