[RascalPuff]

Yes indeed, Byzantium must be a nice, wonderful word to spell out, let along live in. Later called Constantinople, after Emperor Constantine - who adopted and emulated many Eastern ways and in so doing, correspondingly displeased the Pople of the Holy Roman Empire. Most recently bequeathed the name of Istanbul, having made the full cycle from Eastern to quasi Western and then back to Eastern ways...

I speak of this history because it espouses the Eastern Philosophy most resembling continuity, while reminding of the characteristically ephemeral, arriving and departing Western Philosophy, which most metaphorically if not literally parallels and emulates discontinuity.

There are many forums listed in the index - here - for the Theory of Everything, several of which it would not be inappropriate to insert the issue of Western discontinuity and Eastern continuity - perhaps the most generalized description of the schizoid differences in domestic - Western - physics ( non sequiturially 'apart' from Eastern philosophy), today.

In these oxymoronic considerations of continuity 'versus' discontinuity, the former (continuity) represents wave mechanics - the Robert Frost inspired 'road less traveled'. Primarily because there is more funding and pragmatic reward on the beaten path of discontinuous particles in (cyclotron looming, electron and particle slinging of) the microcosms rather than the impetuously non-productive - essentially macrocosmic - and unrewarding, less prestigious continuous waves. With all kudos to champion Stephen Hawking, master of pop bottle rockets launched from empty, tilted - big banging - soda bottles. (Not to mention the more recent, fashionalby post modernistic, emergent, KINKO's copy magnate, Mark McCutcheon.)

All of this is to suggest that a specific forum for Continuity & Discontinuity - under that title - be reserved in the index, since the meanings of these two words are more or less perceived as the most antipodal ('emergent') issues of modern and post-modern theoretical physics.

The deepest, longest and most tenacious, schizophrenic line in the sand, as it were, regarding the opposing entrenchments of theoretical schools.

It isn't that I really favor waves that draws me into that undulating school, as it is the fact that until further notice there aren't any discontinuities - the photon being as much a rumor as the dubious reality of discontinuous 'particles'. While we acknowledge that waves don't really have discontinuous surfaces dividing their inner workings from their surrounding environment.
May the reader bear with me on this esoteric style, while I, under the direct influence of Buckminster Fuller, break fully into quoting - rather than merely paying reverence to - him:

"There is a strong awareness/That we have been overproducing/The army of rigorously disciplined/Scientific, game-playing, academic specialists/Who through hard work/And suppressed imagination/Earn their Ph.D's/And automatic contracts/With prime contractors/Only to have their specialized field become obsolete and by-passed in 5 years/By severely altered techniques, instruments/And exploratory strategems/Despite their honor grades/They prove not to be/The natural philosophers and Scientist-artists, implied by their Ph.D's/But just deluxe quality technicians or mechanics/And a myriad/Of Emergency Committees/Multiplying swiftly/From one or two/Emergency Committees /Appointed by the President/Have altogether discovered/That what the Ph.D Scientists lack/To adapt themselves to change/Has been officially announced to be/"Creativity"...

"Phillip Morrison - Cornell's head/Of the dept. of nuclear physics - /Talks about what he calls/'Left -Hand' and 'Right-Hand' sciences/Right hand science deals in all the proven/Scientific forumulas and experiments//Left Hand science deals in/All of the as yet unknown or unproven- /That is: With all it is going to take/Intellectually, Intuitively, Speculatively, Imaginatively/And even mystically/By inspired persistence//To open up the as yet unknown. / All the 'greats' were Left-Hand Scientists./Despite this historical patterning of the 'greats'/We have government underwriting/Only the Right-Hand Science/Making it bigger and sharper/Rather than more inclusive and understanding! /For how could congress justify/Appropriations of billions for dreams?/So the billions went only for the swiftly obsoleting/ Bigger, faster and more incisive modifications of yesterday's certainties, / By Phd. specialists/guaranteed by the great institutes of technology/To which the congress allocated the training funds/As obviously 'safe'/And exempt from political criticism/Despite that scientific investigation/Had shown beyond doubt/That almost all of America's top performance Scientists/Had been educated in small liberal arts colleges/And that almost all of those top scientists/Attributed their success to their good fortune/ In having studied intimately with a great inspiring teacher./ It would be considered Political Madness/To risk charges of corruption through voting government funds/To any individudal/Especially to 'great inspiring teachers' - 'Crackpot longhairs'!'/So it goes- /To hell with the facts/When re-election to political office is at stake."
- R. Buckminster ('Please pardon my dust') Fuller, And it Came to Pass - Not to Stay. How Little I Know, p.p. 47 -50.

Thsnk you for reading this acknowledged, eccentrically poignant missive.

Attn. Please, Robert: This is my pitch for a a T.O.E. forum focused exclusively on Continuity & Discontinuity, and how the twain shall indeed be recognized as having been met. (Refer Quantum Electrodynmics and Relativity <QED. STR & GR>)

Regards
- RP