Hello world

December 2, 2023. Introduction to the site.

Look at the pattern this seashell makes. The dappled whorl, curving inward to infinity. That's the shape of the universe itself. There's a constant pressure, pushing toward pattern. A tendency in matter to evolve into ever more complex forms. It's a kind of pattern gravity, a holy greening power we call viriditas, and it is the driving force in the cosmos. Life, you see…

And because we are alive, the universe must be said to be alive. We are its consciousness as well as our own. We rise out of the cosmos and we see its mesh of patterns, and it strikes us as beautiful. And that feeling is the most important thing in all the universe—its culmination, like the color of a flower at first bloom on a wet morning. It’s a holy feeling, and our task in this world is to do everything we can to foster it.
— Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars

I’m David. My old site got a bit cluttered, so I decided to pick up stumps and move to a new one. I like patterns. KSR articulates, more clearly than I ever could, how patterns connect us, by use, mention, and that pun from one to the other that is science, to the rest of the universe. I think viriditas extends well beyond science, but the goal of this site is to focus on scientific ways of understanding—particularly the hard sciences of math, physics, and computerology—and to try to make them accessible to a broader audience.

I’ll reveal more about various projects as they develop, but a few I’m excited about:

  • a book;
  • a YouTube channel;
  • new research in HEP and quantum computing;
  • crazy art projects;
  • and a couple of fun tech-related things.

I offer no timelines because I am busy, lazy, and a perfectionist, in no particular order. Meanwhile, I hope to resume blogging about the gewgaws I find littering the hills and meadows of pattern space. Feel free to join me!

Written on December 2, 2023