Chapter 9 · Section 7
The Constants That Stay
Every chapter's "Fixed numbers" tables list the constants of its code by kind. Counted by table row (a row can hold several related numbers), the game holds:
| Chapter | PHYSICS | BPT | METHOD | DISPLAY | RECORD | CAP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The Universe from Its Level | 19 | 47 | 27 | 14 | 8 | 11 |
| 2. The Pulsecore Field | 4 | 31 | 43 | 29 | 14 | 15 |
| 3. Wells, Sites and Gravity Rings | 23 | 25 | 55 | 10 | 9 | 21 |
| 4. Matter and Gravity | 42 | 11 | 81 | 2 | 2 | 22 |
| 5. Stars | 27 | 11 | 34 | 7 | 4 | 14 |
| 6. Galaxies and the Cosmic Web | 29 | 11 | 53 | 31 | 5 | 43 |
| 7. States, Strings, Language and Finds | 0 | 12 | 65 | 29 | 15 | 22 |
| 8. Drawing the Universe | 11 | 9 | 39 | 137 | 5 | 30 |
| Total | 155 | 157 | 397 | 259 | 62 | 178 |
The CAP column counts table rows in the chapters; the register of Part 9.8 merges the rows that name the same number twice, which leaves 170.
PHYSICS, BPT and DISPLAY stay as they are. METHOD constants stay with their reasons written; where one turns out to limit a count, it moves to CAP. Of the physics that stays, the limits most often mistaken for caps are the speed of light (matter never moves faster than c), Thorne's spin limit a ≤ 0.998 (Thorne 1974), and the masses of the stars' remnants (Chapter 5).