Ryan’s library · My current thinking
Physics & Patterns
When I see a pattern, how can I tell whether it explains how something works?
Updated November 1, 2026I want to know the rules before I decide how to play
When Kim asked me what I meant by a fundamental truth, I used a bowling ball. Drop it from a roof and it falls. It makes no difference how persuasive I am. I find something reassuring about that. Once I understand a constraint, I can stop bargaining with it and decide what to do within it.
The same impulse is behind a lot of my reading. I want to know which part of what I’m seeing is a rule, which part is a resemblance, and which part is a choice I still get to make. Those questions follow me into a business. I have a fixed number of hours this week. What I spend them on depends on what I value. Physics helps me ask the first question precisely. I still have to answer the second one for myself.
Jump to the books and conversations ↓
Can I name the rule that made the pattern?
With Fibonacci, I can write down 0 and 1, add them, and keep going. I get 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. Someone else can start with the same instructions and get the same numbers. If I notice a spiral that reminds me of that sequence, I have an interesting question. I still need to find out how the thing grew.
In Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker, a repeating pattern in bacterial DNA is part of a much longer investigation. Finding out what the system actually does took experiments. That’s the part of a discovery I want to understand.
See the Fibonacci rule · Read Jennifer Doudna’s Nobel lecture
What carries over when I change the scale?
I called this library a fractal because I want the same experience at different depths. On the About page you can see the shape of my thinking. Open one subject and you can see its questions. Follow one question and you can find the book or conversation behind it. I borrow that idea from self-similarity. The links are a design choice.
Relativity raises a different question. What would two clocks actually measure if they travelled differently? Brian Greene explains time to five people with different levels of experience. I like that a beginner can enter through an ordinary clock, and someone willing to go further can ask for a test. That’s the kind of reading experience I want to build here.
Watch Brian Greene explain time at five levels · Read the physics of relativity
What would have to be true for the pattern to continue?
Start at 100 and add ten percent each time. You get 110, then 121. I can tell you what comes next because I know the rule. If a company reports those three numbers as annual revenue, I have a different question. Did it gain customers, raise prices or land one big order? I’d want to know which of those happened before projecting the next year.
How does an idea earn my trust?
One of the reasons I loved running a company was how quickly an idea could meet the world. I could hear something on the drive to work, try it with the team, and see whether a new offer produced sales. The numbers gave me feedback. They also left me with a harder question. If sales went up, how would I know it was the offer? What else changed that week?
That’s why David Deutsch’s writing about explanations stuck with me. If my story works just as well when sales fall, I haven’t explained much. I’d start by asking the people who bought why they said yes and checking whether the accounts that saw the new offer behaved differently. A pattern gives me a place to look. A good explanation gives me a reason to expect something the next time.
Find The Beginning of Infinity · Hear the story of trying ideas at Imaging Path
Books from my library
- The Beginning of Infinity · David Deutsch ↗
Deutsch asks what makes an explanation good enough to help us solve a new problem. This is the book I’d pair with the Naval conversation below.
- Scale · Geoffrey West ↗
West examines what changes as organisms, cities and companies get bigger. It’s a useful place to ask which patterns hold across sizes and where the comparison breaks down.
- The Code Breaker · Walter Isaacson ↗
My notes follow the question from a pattern in bacterial DNA to a mechanism involving RNA. Read it for the work between recognizing a pattern and explaining it.
Other podcasts and interviews
- Naval Ravikant with Brett Hall · The Beginning of Infinity, Part 1 ↗
Hall and Ravikant work through Deutsch’s idea of a good explanation. The original episode includes the audio and transcript.
- Jim Al-Khalili with Big Think · Quantum entanglement and the illusion of time ↗
A physicist takes the time to explain why everyday intuitions can fail. I’d start here for the science behind the questions about time.
- Brian Greene with WIRED · Time in five levels of difficulty ↗
One physicist explains the same subject to five people. Look for what stays true as the explanation gets more precise.
From my podcast
- 496 · First principles in practice, with Tom Walker ↗
Listen for our exchange about a bridge that either stands or falls. I use that example to explain why I go back to the financial statements when I want to understand a business decision.
- 500 · What I mean by a fundamental truth, with Kim Clark ↗
Kim asks me what I think is fundamentally true. I use the example of dropping a bowling ball, then turn to the much harder question of how I want to live.