Tough physics, but a solution to an age-old puzzle.
The text I see in front of me,
When magnified, looks spotty
How come, then, it looks smooth to me?
(And don’t tell me I’m dotty.)
It seems we live in a granular world
Where things are all in pieces;
And when you try to look at them,
Their mystery increases.
We like to think we’re solid stuff,
But we’re on shaky ground:
It’s quarks and quanta that make up
The things we see around.
Max Planck said space, and time as well
Are not continuous things:
Each has its smallest little bit –
Complexity, it brings!
Which means, in fact, that you and I
Are really rather gritty,
And all the washing in the world
Won’t help to make us pretty.
But if the world is granular,
I reckon it explains
The lost-sock mystery: it must
Have slipped between those grains . . .