1: Introduction

[Laura Gibbs]

Space for thoughts and responses to Chapter 1: Introduction.

[Ian Carmichael]

To segue a little, I've just come across a Slashdot note (from Schrodinger's Rabbit!) - citing an application for string theory in condensed matter research.
His comment:
"Despite formidable odds, condensed matter physicists have made a breakthrough most thought impossible — finding a practical use for string theory."

This seems more a case of content finding mathematical physics - and also yet another example of the tragic (even though humanly necessary) compartmentalisation of fields of academia. Not many of us, professionally engaged, would take time to master 2,000 pages of abstruse mathematics 'on spec' and then discover it a serendipitous exercise.
Hmm, then again, here I am, reading Klein - a counter-, counter-example!

[Ed Wall]

Perhaps it is not the struggle for meaning, but the struggling - the doing of meaning - that Klein is trying to illuminate.